For housing machines.
He glanced at those around him. All looked awestruck, staring at the city as if trying to comprehend its purpose, as if working to make it seem real. Then he noticed Ryer Ord Star. She stood apart from the others as she always did, but she was shaking, her eyes cast down and her fingers knotted tightly in the folds of her clothing. Her breath came in short, ragged gasps, and she was crying soundlessly. Walker moved next to her, placed his arm on her shoulders, and drew her slender body close.
“What’s wrong?” he asked softly.
She glanced up at him momentarily, then shook her head and melted against him once more, burying her face in his robes. He held her quietly until she stilled—it took a few minutes, no more—then stepped away from her and ordered Ard Patrinell to move out.
They descended the valley slope to its floor, stopping in a wooded clearing a hundred yards back from the edge of the ruins to make camp for the night. By now the sun was brushing the valley rim west and would be down in another hour. It was too late to attempt any exploration of the city today. Walker felt confident that they had located Castledown and that what they had come to find was hidden somewhere within. How difficult it would be to uncover what he sought remained to be seen, but he preferred that their first foray be undertaken in daylight.
Alone, while the others set camp and prepared dinner, he walked to the edge of the city. He stood there in the waning light staring into the shadowed ruins, down long, broad avenues, through gaps in the metal walls, along rooflines long since reshaped by time and the ravages of a conflict he was grateful he had not been alive to see. The races of the present thought of a Druid’s magic as powerful, but real power was unknown to them. Real power was born of science. He found himself wondering what it might have been like to live in those distant times, before the Old World was destroyed. How would it have felt to have power that could destroy entire cities? What sort of havoc would it play with your soul to be able to snuff out thousands of lives at a touch? It made him shiver to imagine it. It made him feel frightened and sick inside.
Perhaps that was what Ryer Ord Star was feeling. Perhaps that was why she cried.
Thinking of her triggered a memory of her vision of the islands and their protectors. It was what she had said after speaking of the keys that surfaced unexpectedly in his thoughts. He had almost forgotten it, dismissed it out of hand as obvious. I see this in a haze of shadow that tracks you everywhere and seeks to place itself about you like a shroud. He had believed her words referred to the Ilse Witch and her relentless pursuit of him.
But looking into the ruins of Castledown and feeling the presence of the thing that waited there like an itch against his skin, he knew he had been mistaken.
30
Morning arrived in a haze of mist and light rain. Crowded together in leaden skies, dark clouds hid the sun and foreshadowed a gloomy day. The air was windless and warm and smelled of damp earth and new leaves. Silence wrapped the world in a veil of hushed expectancy and whispered caution, and even the small comfort of yesterday’s birdsong had disappeared.
In the valley’s pale brume, the ruins of Castledown hunkered down in glistening, sharp-edged relief, dark metallic surfaces streaked bright green by rain-dampened lichen and moss.
Walker divided the search party into three groups. Ard Patrinell would take Ahren Elessedil, Joad Rish, and three of the nine Elven Hunters on the right flank. Quentin Leah and Panax would take another three Elven Hunters on the left. He would occupy the center with Bek, Ryer Ord Star, and the remaining three Hunters. They would enter the ruins with the center group slightly ahead of the other two, all of them spread out but in sight of one another. They would move directly through the city to its far side and then reverse their march displaced by the width of the search party. They would do this for as many times as it took to complete a sweep of the city, changing their route each time. Anything that appeared worth investigating would be given a look. If they failed to turn up what they were looking for today, they would resume their search on the morrow. It was a huge city. Even if they were quick and encountered no difficulties, it could take them more than a week.
Everyone was to stay quiet and listen carefully, he cautioned. There would be no talking. They were to watch out for one another and keep one eye on the leader of their group, taking directions from him. If something required a look, signal by hand or whistle. Stay low and use the buildings for cover. There was every reason to believe that an enemy who was on watch for intruders had laid traps throughout the city. What they had come to find would be carefully guarded.
“Which is what exactly?” Panax asked, an uneasy look in his eyes. Like the others, he was wrapped against the weather in a cloak and hood. In the misted gloom, they looked like wraiths. “What is it we’ve come to find, Walker?”
The Druid hesitated.
“We’ve come a long way not to be told now,” the Dwarf pressed. Rain ran down his seamed face into his beard. “How are we supposed to find what we’re looking for if we don’t know what it is?”
A moment’s silence followed. “Books,” Walker answered softly. The silence returned and lengthened. “Of spells and magic,” he added with a quick glance around. “Gathered during the time of the Old World, then lost in the Great Wars. Except that some of those spells and that magic may have been saved. Here, in Castledown. That’s the treasure the map says is hidden here.”
“Books,” the Dwarf muttered in disbelief.
“They will be of immense value to the races, if we find them,” Walker assured him. “More so than you can imagine. More so than anything else we might have set out to find. But your skepticism is not unwarranted. As far as we know, no books survived the Great Wars. They would have been one of the first things destroyed, if not by fire, then by time and weather. The writings of the Old World were lost two thousand years ago, and only our oral storytelling traditions have preserved the information they contained. Even that small knowledge was diluted and changed over time, so that much of it was rendered useless. What books we have now were assembled by the Druids during the First and Second Councils at Paranor. The Elves have some at Arborlon and the Federation some in Arishaig, but most are kept in the Druid’s Keep. But they are books of this world and not the old. So if there are books here that have survived, they will have been sealed away. That they are books may not be immediately apparent. Their form may have been changed.”
“If the books are numerous and have retained their original look, it will take a large building to house them,” Bek offered quietly.
Walker nodded. “We begin our search with that in mind. We search for anything that might serve as a safehold, a container, or a storehouse. We might not know it when we see it. We will have to be open-minded. Remember, too, that we’ve come here to discover what became of Kael Elessedil’s expedition and the Elfstones he carried with him.”
No one said anything. After a moment, Quentin adjusted the Sword of Leah where it was strapped across his back and glanced at the sky. “Looks like the rain’s letting up,” he advised to no one in particular.
“Let’s get on with it,” Panax added with a grunt.
They set out then, crossing the open ground between the forested valley slope and the ruins, a line of dark ghosts approaching through the haze. They entered the city in three loosely knit groups set about fifty yards apart. They moved swiftly at first, finding mostly rubble amid the shells of smaller buildings that contained machines and apparatuses that sat rusted and dead. They had no idea what they were looking at for the most part, although some of the equipment had the look of weapons. A thick layer of dust had settled over everything, and there was no indication that anyone had come this way recently. Nothing had been disturbed or changed with the passing of the years. Everything was frozen in time.