Ryer Ord Star gasped, and Ahren gripped her arms to steady her as she sagged into him.
The image was gone an instant later. A second image appeared in its wake, this one showing the Druid running swiftly through a series of tunnels lit by odd lamps with no flame, sliding from one patch of light to the next, his face tense and worn. Every so often he paused to look over his shoulder or peer ahead into the gloom, listening and searching. His black robes were torn and soiled, and his dark face was streaked with sweat and dirt and perhaps blood. He was being hunted, and the strain of running and hiding was beginning to tell on him.
The image disappeared. Ryer sobbed softly, as if the impact of the images had collapsed whatever wall of strength remained to her and all that was left was despair.
Ahren clutched at her. “Stop it!” he hissed angrily. “We don’t know if that is really happening! We don’t have any idea what this is about!”
Another image appeared, then another and another, all of creepers moving through the same tunnels, hunting something. Claws and blades flashed brightly when they passed through light. Some of them were huge. Some were rocking in an eager, anticipatory fashion. All had parts awkwardly grafted onto them, giving them a barbaric, half-finished look.
The images disappeared. Ahren decided he’d had enough. “What do you want!” he snapped at the sweeper, not giving a moment’s consideration to whether it could understand him.
Apparently it could. Another image appeared, the Elf and the seer following the little sweeper through the same series of tunnels, searching the gloom. A second image followed, Walker, looking over his shoulder, stopping, lifting his arm as if in recognition, beckoning. Then all of them were joined in a third image, relief painted on their faces, hands reaching out in greeting, Ryer Ord Star melting into Walker’s strong embrace.
The seer was almost hysterical. “It wants us to follow!” she cried. “It wants to take us to Walker. Ahren, we have to go! You saw him! He needs us!” She was shaking him, any attempt at calm forgotten.
Nowhere near as convinced as she was, Ahren freed himself roughly. “Don’t be so quick, Ryer.” He used her first name to make her listen, and it worked. She went still, eyes fastened on him. “We don’t know if any of this is true. We don’t know if these images are real. What if this is a trick? Where did this sweeper come from anyway?”
“It isn’t a trick, it’s real; I can feel it. That really is Walker, and he’s down in those tunnels, and he needs our help!”
Ahren was wondering what sort of help they would be able to provide to the Druid. He was wondering how following the sweeper down into the tunnels—supposing they could do that—would result in the happy ending they had been shown. If Walker, with all his magic, couldn’t get free of the creepers, what difference would their coming after him make?
He looked at the little sweeper. “How did you find us?”
A fresh image appeared. The sweeper was cleaning down at the edges of the maze, just below their hiding place. It was viewing everything through some sort of lens. Something distracted it, and it moved out of the maze and into the ruins, climbing slowly through the rubble until it was just behind them.
The image faded. “It must have heard us,” the seer whispered, giving Ahren a quick, hopeful look.
He didn’t see how. They had been careful not to make any noise at all. Maybe it had sensed their presence. But why hadn’t the other sweepers sensed them, as well?
“I don’t like it,” he said.
“Ahren!” she pleaded, her voice wrenching and sad.
He gave an exasperated sigh, feeling trapped by her need and expectations. She was so desperate to get to Walker, to do something to help him, that she was abandoning any attempt to exercise caution or good sense. On the other hand, he was so desperate to get away from this place, that he was refusing to give the sweeper’s credibility any consideration at all.
“Why are you trying to help us?” he asked the little machine. “What difference does it make to you what we do?”
The sweeper must have expected the question; an image immediately appeared in the same place as the others. It showed the sweeper performing its tasks in the maze and the tunnels belowground. A second set of images followed, these showing the sweeper being kicked and pummeled and knocked about in almost every conceivable way by something big and dark and fearsome that was always cloaked in shadow or just out of sight. Time and again, the sweeper was picked up and flung against a wall. Over and over, it was knocked on its side and had to be righted by other sweepers coming to its aid. There seemed to be no reason for the attacks. They appeared random and purposeless, the result of misdirected or pointless anger and frustration. Dented and cracked, the little sweeper would have to be repaired by its fellows before returning to its duties.
The images disappeared. The sweeper went still once more. Ahren tried to reconcile his doubts. An abused sweeper? Kicked around so thoroughly and for so long that it would do anything to put a stop to it? That meant, of course, that the sweeper was capable of feeling emotion and reacting to treatment that troubled it. As a rule, machines didn’t feel anything, not even creepers. They were machines, which by definition meant they weren’t human.
But these machines might well be as old as the city and whatever lived in it. It was not impossible to imagine that before the Great Wars destroyed the old civilization, humans had developed machines that could think and feel.
“It’s asking for our help,” Ryer Ord Star pointed out, breaking the silence. She brushed back her long silver hair in frustration. “In return, it will help us find Walker. Don’t you understand?”
Not entirely, Ahren thought. “What sort of help does it expect us to give it?”
An image flashed from the open hatchway in the sweeper’s metal head. Walker, Ahren, and Ryer Ord Star were walking from the ruins with the sweeper in tow.
“You want us to take you along when we leave?” he asked in disbelief.
The image repeated itself twice more, insistent and unmistakable. Then a new image appeared, the Jerle Shannara rising skyward, light sheaths stretched taut, radian draws rippling with power. At the bow of the airship stood the little sweeper, looking back at the land it was leaving behind.
“This is ridiculous,” Ahren muttered, almost to himself. “It’s a machine!”
“A sentient machine,” Ryer Ord Star corrected him. “Sophisticated and capable of feeling. Ahren, it wants what we all want. It wants to be free.”
The Elven youth sat down slowly on the pile of rubble and put his chin in his hands. “I still don’t feel good about this,” he said, his eyes watching the sweeper. “If we do what it wants and go underground, we’ll be cut off from everything. If this is a trap, we won’t have any chance of escaping. I don’t know. I still think we ought to find the others first.”
She knelt in front of him and put her hands over his, the tips of her fingers brushing his face. “Elven Prince, listen to me. Why would this be a trap? If whatever wards Castledown wanted us, couldn’t it have had us by this time? If this sweeper meant to betray us, wouldn’t we already be surrounded by creepers? What difference does it make to anything if it manages to get us belowground? Why would it go to so much trouble to accomplish so little?”
He had to admit he didn’t know. She was right; it didn’t make much sense. But neither did a lot of other things that had happened on this voyage, and he wasn’t about to discount the way his instincts kept tugging at him in warning. Something was bothering him. Maybe it was just his fear of ending up like Joad Rish and the others. Maybe it was his indelible memory of the carnage and screams and dying. It was all too fresh to allow him to think objectively yet.
“There’s no time to look for anyone else,” she insisted. “There may not be anyone out there to find!”