Terry Brooks - Antrax

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?