The Druid placed Ard Patrinell in charge, giving over to the Elf the responsibility for protecting the company. The Captain of the Home Guard sent a young woman named Tamis, a tracker, ahead some fifty yards to scout the way in and placed an Elven Hunter to either side to guard their flanks. The rest of the company he grouped by twos, placing Walker in the vanguard and Panax in the rear, with Elven Hunters warding them both. Quentin was given responsibility for the center of the formation and those who were not trained fighters, Joad Rish and Ryer Ord Star and Bek in particular.
Walker glanced at the boy from time to time as they proceeded, trying to take his measure, to judge how Bek felt about himself now that he knew so much more. It was difficult to do. Bek seemed to have adapted well enough to his increased responsibility for use of the magic of the wishsong and the Sword of Shannara. But Bek was a complex personality, not easily read, and it remained to be seen how he would react to the demands that his heritage might require of him down the road. As of now, he had only scratched the surface of what he could or would in all probability be asked to do. The boy simply didn’t understand yet how enmeshed in all this he was and what that was likely to mean to him. Nor was there any easy or safe way to tell him.
Like it or not, Bek would grow increasingly difficult to manage. He was independent to begin with, but what control the Druid had maintained over him to date was mostly the result of what he knew that the boy didn’t. Now that advantage was pretty much gone, and in the process Bek had grown distrustful of him. As matters stood, the boy was as likely to do what he felt like as what Walker suggested, and choices of that sort could prove fatal.
The Druid was reminded once again how far he had strayed from his vow to avoid falling into a Druid’s manipulative ways. He could not escape the fact that he was becoming more like Allanon with the passing of every day. All of his good intentions and promises had come to nothing. It was a sobering conclusion, and it induced a deep and profound sadness. He could argue that at least he was aware of his failings, but what good was that if he was unable to correct them? He could justify everything and still feel as if he had betrayed himself utterly.
The company pressed deeper into the woods, climbing from the bay’s coastline into the surrounding hills, burrowing deeper into the sun-speckled shadows and thickening woods. The ground was rough and uneven, crisscrossed by ravines and gullies, blocked entirely in places by deadfall and heavy brush. A handful of times they found their way blocked by cuts too deep and wide to cross. Twice they encountered clumps of trees that appeared to have been dropped by a storm, twisted masses of deadwood that ran for a quarter of a mile. Each time they had to back away from one approach and try another. Each time they were forced to change direction, and with each change it grew increasingly difficult to determine exactly where they were.
Walker carried a compass he had borrowed from Redden Alt Mer, but even so it was impossible to maintain a straight line of approach. The best the Druid could manage was to plot a course from where they had come, which was of dubious value. But the day stayed bright and warm, the sun a cheerful presence in the blue sky, and the sounds of birdsong comforting and reassuring. Nothing threatened from the shadows. Nothing dangerous appeared or gave sign of its presence. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary in a forested wilderness that could easily have been their own.
Even so, Walker was wary. Despite appearances, he knew what waited for them somewhere along the way. He would have preferred to have Truls Rohk foraging ahead to ward their approach, but there was no help for that. The Elven Hunters would have to do. They were well trained and able, but no one was as good at staying hidden as the shape-shifter. He wondered where the other was, if he had escaped detection aboard the airship of the Ilse Witch, if he was accomplishing something important. He shook his head at the thought. Whatever Truls was doing, it couldn’t be as important as what he could be doing here.
Morning came and went, and still they trekked on through the forest without finding anything. The castaway’s map had brought them to the bay and pointed them inland and that was as much direction as they were going to get. On the map, a dotted line led to an X that said Castledown. There was no explanation of what Castledown was. There was no description of how they might recognize it. Walker had to assume that its identity would be self-evident when they came across it. It wasn’t the biggest assumption he had made in this business by any means, so he wasn’t uncomfortable following it.
It was late in the afternoon when his faith was rewarded. They topped a steep rise through a heavily wooded draw and discovered all three Elven scouts clustered together waiting for them. Her pixie face solemn and expectant, Tamis pointed ahead.
It was hardly necessary for her to do so. The hillside before them fell away into a broad, deep valley that easily ran ten miles from end to end and another five across. Trees carpeted the slopes and ridges, a soft green ring in the afternoon sunlight. But across the entire valley floor, all ten miles wide and five miles deep of it, sprawled the ruins of a city. Not a city from the present, Walker realized at once. Even from where they stood, still a half mile away, that much was apparent. The buildings were low and flat, not tall like those of Eldwist had been in the land of the Stone King. Some were damaged, their surfaces cracked and broken, their edges ragged and sharp. Holes opened through walls to reveal twisted, burned-out interiors. Debris lay scattered everywhere, some of it rusted and pitted by weather, some of it overgrown with lichen and moss. There was a uniformity to the ruins that indicated clearly that no one had lived here for a very long time.
But what struck the Druid immediately about the city, even more so than its immense size, was that virtually everything was made of metal. Walls, roofs, and floors all gleamed with patches of metallic brightness. Even bits and pieces of the streets and passageways reflected the sun. As far as the eye could see, the ruins were composed of sheets and slabs and struts of metal. Scrub grasses and brush had fought their way up through gaps in the fittings like pods of sea life breaching in an open sea. Isolated groves of trees grew in tangled thickets that might have been parks, carefully tended once perhaps, gone wild now. Even in its present state, crumbling and deteriorated since the Great Wars had reduced it to an abandoned wreck, the nature of its once sleek, smooth condition was evident.
“Shades!” Panax hissed at his elbow, thinking perhaps of the ruins his people had once mined in the aftermath of the holocaust.
Walker nodded to himself. The ruins of Castledown were gigantic. He had never imagined something of this size could exist. How many people had there been in the world if this was an example of the massiveness of their cities? He knew from the Druid histories that the number had been large, much larger than now. But there had been thousands of cities then, not hundreds. How many of them had been this huge? Walker found himself suddenly overwhelmed by the images, the numbers, and the possibilities. He wondered exactly what it was they were going to find. For the first time, he found himself wondering if they were up to it.
Then it struck him suddenly that perhaps he had made an incorrect assumption. The more he stared at the ruins, the more unlikely it seemed that it had been built to house people. The look of the buildings was all wrong. Low and wide and flat, vast spaces with high windows and broad entrances, sprawling foundations with no personal spaces, they seemed better suited for something else. For warehousing, perhaps. For factories and construction yards.