It was as if she had ceased to exist. Some tiny part of her knew that she should have been horrified by the things that wound about her and rubbed so lovingly against her. But she was given over to the music of the wishsong now, and she was no longer the one she had been. All of the feelings and reasonings that had been hers, that had made her who she was, were masked away by the dark magic, and she was become a thing like that into which she journeyed. She was a kindred spirit, wandered back from some distant place, the evil within her as strong as the evil she found waiting. She had become as dark as the Maelmord and the life that had been sp.a.w.ned there. She was one with it. She belonged.

A tiny part of her understood that Brin Ohmsford had ceased to exist, made over by the magic of the wishsong. It understood that she had let herself become this other thing-a thing so repulsive that she could not have stood it otherwise-and that she would not come back to herself until she had found her way through to the heart of the evil enfolding her. The euphoria, the exhilaration brought on by the frightening power of the wishsong, threatened to steal her away from herself completely, to strip her of her sanity and make her forever the thing she pretended to be. All the strange and marvelous imaginings were but trappings of a madness that would destroy her. All that remained of the one she once had been was that small bit of self that she still kept wrapped carefully within. All else had become the child of the Maelmord.

The wall of the jungle pa.s.sed away and came about again, and nothing of it changed.

Shadows wrapped close about, as soft as black velvet and as silent as death. The whole of the sky stayed screened away, and only the half-light of night's coming penetrated beyond the gloom. All the while that she walked in this maze of darkness and stifling heat, the hissing of the Maelmord's breath lifted from the earth, and the limbs, trunks, stalks, and vines swayed and writhed with the motion. Save for the hissing, there was only silence-intense and expectant.

There was no sign of other life-no sign of the walkers, of the dark things that served them, or of the Ildatch that had given them all life.

She went on, driven by that spark of memory she harbored deep within herself. Find the Ildatch, it whispered in its small, empty voice. Find the book of the dark magic. Time fragmented and slipped away until it no longer had meaning. Had she been here an hour? Or more? There was a strange sense of having been here for a very long time, almost as if she had been here forever.Far distant, almost lost to her in the vast tangle of the jungle, something tumbled from the cliffs above and fell into the pit. She could sense its fall and hear its scream as the Maelmord closed quickly about it, squeezing, crushing, and consuming until the thing was no more. She savored its death, tasted its blood as it was devoured. When it was gone, she longed for more.

Then whispered warnings brushed at her. From a dimly remembered past she saw Allanon once more. Tall and bent, his black hair gone gray, his lean face lined with age, he reached for her across a chasm she could not bridge, and his words were like sprinkled drops of rain upon a window closed before her. Beware. The wishsong is power like nothing I have ever seen. Use it with caution. She heard the words, saw them spatter on the gla.s.s and found herself laughing at the way they fell. The figure of the Druid receded and was gone. Dead, now, she reminded herself in surprise. Gone from the Four Lands forever.

She called him back again, as if his reappearance would serve to remind her of something that she had somehow forgotten. He came, sweeping out of the mists, striding across the chasm that had separated them. His strong hands came down gently to rest upon her shoulders. Wisdom and determination reflected in his eyes, and there was a sense of his never having truly left, but his always having been there. This is not a game you play, he whispered. Never that! Beware!

And she shook her head. I am savior and destroyer, she whispered back. But who am I? Tell me now! Tell me...

A ripple in the fabric of her consciousness swept him away, a ghost, and suddenly she was back within the Maelmord. There was a rumbling of uneasiness within the pit, a tone of dissatisfaction in its hiss. It had sensed a momentary change in her and was disturbed. She reverted instantly to the thing she had created. The wishsong rose and swept into the jungle, soothing it, lulling it once again. The uneasiness and dissatisfaction faded.

She slipped ahead again into the nothingness, letting the Maelmord swallow her up.

There was a deepening of shadows and a fading of the light. The breathing of the pit seemed to grow heavier. The sense of kinship that the wishsong created between them tightened and left her breathless with antic.i.p.ation. She was close now-close to what she sought. The feel of it speared through her like a sudden rush of blood, and she sang with renewed intensity. The magic of the wishsong lifted through the gloom, and the Maelmord shuddered in response.

Then the wall of the jungle fell away, and she stood within a ma.s.sive, shadowed clearing, wrapped close about by trees, brush, and vines. A tower stood at the center of the clearing, ancient and crumbling, lost in the gloom. Walls of stone rose upward toward the forest roof, forming and reforming in a series of spiraling turrets and notched parapets, as stripped and barren in their look as bleached bones. Nowhere did the foliage of the jungle grow upon the tower. As if its touch meant death, the jungle had pa.s.sed it by.

Brin stopped, the music of the wishsong lowering to a whisper of expectancy as she stared at the tower.

Here! The heart of the evil is here. The Ildatch!

Drawing close the layers of magic that cloaked her, she went to meet it.

43.

Wooden doors, weathered and cracked with age, stood ajar at the tower's dark entry, sagging on hinges broken and rusted with disuse. Wrapped in the music of her song, the Valegirl pa.s.sed through. The gloom lay thick within, yet there was light enough by which she might see, a dim and misted glimmer that slipped in thin streamers through cracks and splits in the tower's crumbling walls. Dust carpeted the stone flooring, forming a blanket of fine silt that rose in clouds as the girl's boots pressed down upon it. It was cool here, the heat and the stench of the jungle somehow locked without.

Brin slowed. A hallway wound ahead into shadow. She turned briefly, a warning tug from deep within her bringing her about to stare guardedly back into the ma.s.s of the jungle that walled this tower away.

She went on. The power of the magic stirred through her in a flush of sudden heat, and she seemed to float. She pa.s.sed down the hallway, following its bends and twists, barely aware of the dust as it rose vaporlike from beneath her feet. Once she thought to wonder how it was that no other footprints save hers marked the corridor she followed when surely the Mord Wraiths, too, had pa.s.sed this way, but the matter faded quickly from her mind.

Stairs rose before her and she began to climb-a slow, endless climb into the center of the tower. Whispers seemed to call out to her, voices that had no source and no ident.i.ty, but were born of the very air she breathed. All about her, the whispers called. Shadows and half-light mixed and blended. It seemed as if she were soaking into the stone of the tower itself, slipping ghostlike through its chambers, spreading out to become one with it, as she had become one with the Maelmord. She felt it happen, bit by bit, a welcome drawing in of her body. The magic of the song made it happen, still reaching out to the evil that lay hidden there, insinuating her within as if she were truly one with it...

Then the stairway ended and she stood on the threshold of a cavernous, domed rotunda that lay gray, shadowed, and empty. Almost of its own volition, the music of the wishsong faded to a whisper, and the voices in the air about her went still.

She entered the room, barely conscious of the movement of her body, still seeming to float as she pa.s.sed. Shadows crept back from her, and her eyes adjusted to the light. The chamber was not empty, as she had first thought. There, almost lost in the gloom, was a dais; on the dais was an altar. She came forward a step. Something rested on the altar, huge, squarish, and shrouded in a darkness that seemed to emanate from within. She came forward another step. A fierce excitement flooded through her.

It was the Ildatch!

She knew it instantly, before she was certain what it was that she was seeing. This was the Ildatch, the heart of evil. The power of the wishsong filled her and drove through her, body with white-hot intensity.

She crossed the room through the raging of her thoughts, twisting down into herself like a coiled snake. The music of the wishsong became a venomous hiss. The room seemed to draw away from her, the walls receding back into shadow until there was nothing in all the world but the book. She climbed the steps of the dais and strode to where it lay closed upon the altar. It was old and worn, its bindings of copper tarnished to a greenish black and its leather covers cracked and soiled-a huge and monstrous tome that looked as if it might have seen the pa.s.sing of all the ages of mankind that had ever been.She hovered over it a moment, staring down expectantly, savoring the deep satisfaction she felt at having the book finally within her grasp.

Then she reached down and her hands closed about it.

-Dark child- The voice whispered softly within her mind, and her fingers froze upon the tarnished bindings.

-Dark child- The wishsong died into a whisper and was gone. Her throat constricted and sealed the music away, almost before she knew what it was that she had done. She stood in silence before the altar, hands still clasped tightly upon the book. Echoes of the voice lingered fitfully within her mind, tendrils that reached out and bound her so that she could not move.

-I have been waiting for you, dark child. I have been waiting since first you came into being, a baby from your mother's womb, Elven magic's child. Always we have been joined, you and I, by bonds stronger than blood ties, stronger than flesh. Many times we have touched spirit to spirit, and, though I never knew you nor knew your way, I knew always that one day you would come- The voice was flat and toneless, belonging neither to man nor woman, but to something that was both, stripped of all emotion and all feeling, so that there was an emptiness to its whisper that was devoid of life. Brin listened to that voice and went cold to the bone. Deep within, the self that she still sheltered and kept hidden drew back in terror.

-Dark child- She scanned the shadows of the chamber about her rapidly. Where was the speaker who called to her? What thing was it that held her so? Her eyes shifted in horror to the ancient tome she held. Her fingers were white with the grip they kept, and a burning spread from the leathered bindings.

-I am, dark child. Even as you. I have life. It has always been so. There have always been those who would give me life. There have always been those who would give me theirs- Brin's mouth opened, but no sound came forth. The burning sensation spread from her hands into her arms and began to climb.

-Know me. I am the Ildatch, the book of the dark magic, born of the age of faerie. I am older than the Elves-as old as the King of the Silver River, as ancient as the Word. Those who created me, those who gave me form, have long since pa.s.sed from the land with the coming of the worlds of faerie and Man. Once I was but a part of the Word, hidden from sight and spoken only in darkness. I was but a gathering of secrets. Then the gathering took form, written and studied by those who would know my power. There have always been those who would know my power. Through all the ages, I have been there for them and have given my secrets to those who wished them shared. I have made creatures of magic and given power. But never has there been one such as you- The words echoed in whispers filled with antic.i.p.ation and promise, and the Valegirl felt them spin like blown leaves through her mind. The burning was all through her now, a tingling like the rush of heat from a furnace as its door is thrown open.

-There have been many before you. Of the Druids were born the Warlock Lord and the Bearers of the Skull. They found in me the secrets that they sought and became what they would.

But I was the power. Of men outcast of the races were born the Mord Wraiths, seeds already sown. But again, I was the power. I am always the power. Each time, there is supreme vision ofwhat must be with the world and with her creatures. Each time, that vision is given shape by the minds of those who would use the power locked within my pages. Each time, the vision proves inadequate and the shaper fails. Dark child, see now a glimpse of what it is that I can offer- As if of their own volition, Brin's hands carefully opened the book of the Ildatch, and its parchment leaves began to turn. Words whispered from a text in an alien script and language older than man, lifting from script to voice, soft and secretive. The Valegirl's mind opened to them, and comprehension of the text came instantly to her. A touch here, a touch there, the secrets of power were revealed to her, dark and terrible.

Then, as quickly as the revelations had come, they were gone again, lingering on in teasing memories. The pages of the book slipped back again, and the bindings closed. Her hands, still fastened on the ma.s.sive tome, began to shake.

-Only a whisper of what I am have I shown you. Power, dark child. Power that would dwarf that mastered by the Druid Brona and those who followed him. Power that would render meaningless that of the Mord Wraiths who come to me now. Feel that power rush through you.

Feel its touch- The burning flooded through her. She felt herself expand and grow with its rush.

-For a thousand years, I have been used in ways that would dictate the fate of you and yours. For a thousand years, the enemies of your family have called upon my power and sought to destroy what you would keep. All that has brought you to this place and time has been because of me. I am the maker of what you are; I am the shaper of your life. There is reason in all that happens, dark child, and there is reason in this. Do you sense what that reason is? Look within- A whisper of warning called suddenly to her, and she seemed to remember a tall, black-robed figure with graying heir and piercing eyes speaking to her of that which would deceive and corrupt. She struggled momentarily with the memory, but no name would come and the vision was obscured by the burning that filled her and the lingering echo of the words of the Ildatch.

-Do you not see yourself? Do you not see what you are? Look within- The voice was cold, flat, and emotionless still, yet there was an insistence to it that wrenched her thoughts away. Her vision blurred, and she seemed to see from without the thing that she had become through the magic of the wishsong.

We are as one, dark child, just as you have wished. There was never any need for the Elven magic, for you are what you are and always have been. That is why we are joined. There are ties born of the magics that make us what we are, for we are no more than the magics that we harbor-you within your body of flesh and blood, I within mine of parchment and ink. We are lives joined, and what has gone before has brought us to now. It is for this that I have waited all these years- Lies! The word flashed through Brin's mind and was lost. Her thoughts spun in confusion, and her reason scattered. Her hands still gripped the Ildatch as if it held her life within, and she found the words spoken by its disembodied voice oddly persuasive. There were indeed ties that bound them; there was a joining. She was like the Ildatch, a part of it, kindred to it.

She called out the name of the Druid in her mind, struggling to find the memory she had now lost. The burning rose in a fierce rush to carry it away, and again the voice spoke: -All these years I have waited for you, dark child. From-time out of time, you have come to me, and now I belong to you. See what must be done with me. Whisper it back to me- The words came together in her mind, dark against the red haze of her vision. She soughtto scream, but the sound constricted in her throat.

-Whisper what must be done with me- No! No!

-Whisper what must be done with me- Tears rose to her eyes and trickled slowly down her cheeks, I must use you, she answered.

Rone stalked from the Croagh in fury, wheeled, and came back again. Both hands gripped the ebony blade of his sword until the knuckles were white.

"Enough is enough-get that cat out of my way, Kimber!" he ordered, coming up next to her and slowing as Whisper's ma.s.sive head swung about to face him.

But again. the girl shook her head. "I cannot do that, Rone. He uses his own judgment in this."

"I don't care a whit about his judgment!" Rone exploded. "He's only an animal and he can't make a decision like this! I'm going past him whether he likes it or not! I'm not leaving Brin down in that pit alone!"

Sword lifting, he started for Whisper, but in that instant a deep shudder rippled through the mountain, rising up from the dark jungle of the Maelmord. So strong was the tremor that it staggered the highlander and the girl, causing them to stumble back in surprise. Shaken, they regained their balance and hurried to the edge of the cliffs.

"What's happened down there?" Rone whispered worriedly. "What's happened, Kimber?"

"Walkers, I'd guess." Cogline spit from behind him. "Called up the dark magic to use against the girl, maybe."

"Grandfather!" Kimber was angry this time.

Rone wheeled in rage. "Old man, if anything has happened to Brin because I've been held up here by that cat..."

Then he went suddenly still. A line of shadows appeared on the stairway of the Croagh, stooped and shrouded in the fading half-light of the late afternoon. They came one after another, descending from Graymarks' leaden walls, winding their way downward toward the ledge where Rone and his companions waited.

"Mord Wraiths!" the highlander breathed softly.

Already Whisper was turning, wheeling into a crouch as he prepared to defend against them. Cogline's sudden intake of breath hissed sharply through the silence.

Rone stared upward wordlessly as the line of dark forms lengthened and advanced. There were too many.

"Get behind me, Kimber," he told her gently.

Then he brought up the sword.

I must use you...use you...use you.

The words repeated over and over in Brin's mind, rising in a litany of conviction that threatened to inundate all reason. Yet some tiny semblance of logic remained, screaming at her through the words of the chant.

It is the dark magic, Valegirl! It is the evil that you have come into this place to destroy!

But the touch of the book against the skin of her hands and the burning it brought to her body held her bound so that nothing else could hold sway. Again the voice came to her, wrapping close about.-What am I but a gathering of wisdom's lessons culled through the ages and bound for the usage of mortal beings? I am neither good nor evil, but simply a thing that is. Learning, recorded and bound-there for any who might seek to know. I take what is given me of the lives of those who work my spells and I am but a reflection of them. Think, dark child. Who have been the ones who would use me? What purposes have they sought to serve? You are not as they- Brin braced herself against the altar, the book clasped in her hands. Don't listen? Don't listen!

-For a thousand years and longer, your enemies have held me. Now you stand in their place, given the chance to use me as no other has tried. You hold the power that is mine. You hold the secrets that so many have wrongly used. Think what you might do with that power, dark child. All of life and death can be reshaped by what I am. Wishsong joined to written word, magic to magic-how wondrous it would be. You can feel how wondrous it would be if you would but try- But there was no need to try. She had felt it before in the magic of the wishsong. Power!

She had been swept away by it, and she had reveled in its sweetness. When it wrapped about her, she rose far above all the world and all of the creatures in it and she could gather them in or sweep them away as she might choose. How much more, then, could she do-could she feel-if she had also the power of this book?

-All that is would be yours. All. Be what you would and make the world as you know it should be. You could so do much, and it would be as it should with you-not as with those who came before. You have the strength which they lacked. You are born of the Elven magic. Use me, dark child. Find the limits of your own magic and of mine. Join with me. It is for this that I have waited and that, you have come. It is what has always been intended for us. Always- Brin's head shook slowly from side to side. I came to destroy this, came to make an end...Within, everything seemed to be breaking apart, shattering like gla.s.s fallen to stone. Rushes of blinding heat burned through her, and she felt as if she were a thing apart from the body that sought to hold her.

-I have knowledge to offer that I would give. I have insight that surpa.s.ses anything ever dreamed by mortal creatures. It can make you anything you wish. All of life can be made over as it should be, as you see that it should. Destroy me, and all I have is needlessly lost. Destroy me, and nothing of what might come to pa.s.s can ever do so. Keep what is good, dark child, and make it your own- Allanon, Allanon...

But the voice cut short her soundless cry.

-See, dark child. What you truly would destroy stands behind you. Turn now and look.

Turn and see- She whirled. A gathering of robed walkers slipped from the shadows like ghosts, tall, black, and forbidding. They filed into the rotunda, hesitating as they caught sight of Brin holding in her hands the book of dark magic. The voice of the Ildatch whispered again.

-The wishsong, dark child. Use the magic. Destroy them. Destroy them- She acted almost without thinking. Clasping the Ildatch to her protectively, she called forth the power of her magic. It came swiftly, loosed within her like the waters of a flood. She cried out, and the wishsong shattered the tower's dark silence. It went through the gloom of the rotunda, almost a tangible thing. It caught the walkers in a burst of sound, and they simply ceased to exist. Not even ash remained of what they had been.Brin staggered back against the altar, and within her body the magic of the wishsong mixed with the magic of the book.

-Feel it, dark child. Feel the power that is yours. It fills you, and I am part of it. How easily your enemies must fall before you when that power is called forth. Can you question longer what must be? Think no more that anything different could ever be. Think no more that we are not as one. Take me and use me. Destroy the Wraiths and the black things that would stand against you. Make me yours. Give me life- Still that part of her locked deep within fought to resist the voice, but her body was no longer her own. It belonged now to the magic, and she was trapped within its sh.e.l.l. She rose through herself, a new being, and that tiny bit of self that still saw the truth was left behind. She expanded until it seemed as if she filled the tiny chamber. There was so little room for her here!

She must have the s.p.a.ce that waited without!

A long, anguished groan broke from her lips, and she stretched forth her arms, the book of the Ildatch held high.

-Use me. Use me- Within her, the power began to build.

44.

The steps of the Croagh sped away beneath Jair's feet as he hastened after Garet Jax and Slanter, and it seemed to him as he climbed that each step must surely be his last. The muscles knotted and cramped within his body, and pain from his wound lanced through him, wearing away at his already failing strength. He was gasping for breath, his lungs aching, and his sun-browned face streaked with sweat.

But somehow he kept pace. There was never any question of doing anything else.

His eyes swept upward along the Croagh as he ran, concentrating on the weave of stairs and railing, following the path of the roughened stone. He was conscious of the cliffs and fortress walls below him, distant now and fading further, and of Graymark and the Ravenshorn. He was conscious, too, of the valley all about, encased in mist and the half-light of a dusk that rapidly approached. Brief images slipped past the corners of his vision and were quickly forgotten, for none of that mattered now. Nothing mattered but the climb and what waited at its end.

Heaven's Well.

And Brin. He would find her again in the waters of the well. He would discover what had become of her, and he would learn what it was that he must do to help her. The King of the Silver River had promised him that he would find a way to give Brin back to herself.

His boot slid out from under him suddenly as he stepped on a patch of crumbling stone and he fell forward, his hands sc.r.a.ping as he caught himself. Quickly he pushed back up again and hurried on, heedless of the damage.

Ahead, the other two ran effortlessly on-Garet Jax and Slanter, the last of the little company that had come north from Culhaven. Bitterness and anger flooded through the Valeman.

Flashes of light danced before his eyes as he fought for breath momentarily, exhaustion sweeping through him. But they were almost at their journey's end.

The stone spiral of the Croagh swung suddenly right, and the wall of the peak toward which they climbed rose close before them, rugged and stark against the graying sky. Ahead, the stairway ascended to the dark mouth of a cavern that opened back into the heart of the mountain.

Less than two dozen steps remained.

Garet Jax motioned for them to wait, then soundlessly climbed the last few stairs to the summit of the Croagh and stepped out onto the ledge. He stood there a moment, his black form framed against the afternoon sky, lean and shadowy. He was like something inhuman, the thought flashed briefly through Jair's mind, like something that wasn't real.

The Weapons Master turned, gray eyes fixing on him. One hand beckoned.

"Hurry, boy," Slanter muttered.

They scrambled up the remaining steps of the Croagh and stood beside Garet Jax. The cavern loomed before them, a monstrous chamber split by dozens of crevices that let in the light from without in dim, hazy streamers. Close about, the shadows gathered, and within their blackness nothing moved.

"Can't see anything from here," Slanter grumbled. He started forward, but instantly Garet Jax pulled him back.

"Wait, Gnome," he said. "There's something there...something that waits..."

His voice trailed away softly. A stillness settled down about them, deep and oppressive.

Even the wind that stirred the mists of the valley seemed to die suddenly away. Jair caught his breath and held it. There was indeed something there-waiting. He could feel its presence."Garet..." he began softly.

"Shhhhh."

Then a shadow detached itself from the rocks within the cavern entrance, and Jair went cold to the bone. Silently, the shadow slipped through the gloom. It was nothing that any of them had ever seen. It was neither a Gnome nor a Wraith, but a powerfully built creature, almost man-shaped, with a thick ruff about its loins and great, hooked claws at its fingers and toes. Cruel yellow eyes fixed on them, and a scarred, b.e.s.t.i.a.l face split wide at its snout to reveal a ma.s.s of crooked teeth.