“Walker,” Truls Rohk said softly, bending close to him. “Tell us what to do.”
The pale face shifted slightly, and the dark eyes settled on the other. “Carry me out of here. Go where I tell you to go. Don’t stop until you get there.”
“But your wounds—”
“My wounds are beyond help.” The Druid’s voice turned suddenly hard and fierce. “There isn’t much time left, shape-shifter. Not for me. Do as I say. Antrax is destroyed. Castledown is dead. What there was of the treasure we came to find, of the books and their contents, is lost.” The eyes shifted. “Bek, bring your sister with us. Lead her by the hand. She will follow.”
Bek glanced at Grianne, then back at Walker. “If we move you . . .”
“Druid, it will kill you to take you out of here!” Truls Rohk snapped angrily. “I didn’t come this far just to bury you!”
The Druid’s strange eyes fixed on him. “Choices of life and death are not always ours to make, Truls. Do as I say.”
Truls Rohk scooped the Druid into the cradle of his arms, slowly and gently, trying not to damage him further. Walker made no sound as he was lifted, his dark head sinking into his chest, his good arm folding over his stomach. Bek strapped the Sword of Shannara across his back, then took Grianne’s hand and pulled her to her feet. She came willingly, easily, and she made no response to being led away.
They passed out of the ruined chamber and back down the passageway through which they had come. At the first juncture, Walker took them in a different direction than the one that had brought them in. Bek saw the dark head move slightly and heard the tired voice whisper instructions. The ends of the Druid’s tattered robes trailed from his limp form, leaving smears of blood on the floor.
As they progressed through the catacombs, Bek glanced at Grianne from time to time, but never once did she look back at him. Her gaze stayed fixed straight ahead, and she moved as if she was sleepwalking. It frightened the boy to see her like this, more so than when she was hunting him. She seemed as if she was nothing more than a shell, the living person she had been gone entirely.
Their progress was slowed now and again by heaps of stone and twisted metal that barred their passage. Once, Truls was forced to lay the Druid down long enough to force back a sheet of twisted metal tightly jammed across their passage. Bek watched the Druid’s eyes close against his pain and weariness, saw him flinch when he was picked up again, his hand clawing at his stomach as if to hold himself together. How Walker could still be alive after losing so much blood was beyond the boy. He had seen injured men before, but none who had lived after being damaged so severely.
Truls Rohk was beside himself. “Druid, this is senseless!” he snapped at one point, stopping in rage and frustration. “Let me try to help you!”
“You help me best by going on, Truls,” was the other’s weak response. “Go, now. Ahead still.”
They walked a long way before finally coming out into a vast underground cavern that did not look as if it was a part of Castledown, but of the earth itself. The cavern was natural, the rock walls unchanged by metal or machines, the ceiling studded with stalactites that dripped water and minerals in steady cadence through the echoing silence. What little light there was emanated from flameless lamps that bracketed the cavern entry and a soft phosphorescence given off by the cavern rock. It was impossible to see the far side of the chamber, though bright enough to discern that it was a long distance off.
At the center of the chamber was a huge body of water as black as ink and smooth as glass.
“Take me to its edge,” Walker ordered Truls Rohk.
They made their way along the uneven cavern floor, which was littered with loose rock and slick with damp. Moss grew in dark patches, and tiny ferns wormed through cracks in the stone. That anything could grow down here, bereft of sunlight, surprised Bek.
He squeezed Grianne’s hand reassuringly, an automatic response to the encroachment of fresh darkness and solitude. He glanced at her immediately to see if she had noticed, but her gaze was still directed straight ahead.
At the water’s edge, they stopped. On Walker’s instructions, Truls Rohk knelt to lay him down, cradling him so that his head and shoulders rested in the shape-shifter’s arms. Bek found himself thinking how odd it seemed, that a creature who was himself not whole, but bits and pieces held together by smoky mist, should be the Druid’s bearer. He remembered when he had first met Walker in the Highlands of Leah. The Druid had seemed so strong then, so indomitable, as if nothing could ever change him. Now he was broken and ragged, leaking blood and life in a faraway land.
Tears came to Bek’s eyes as swiftly as the thought, his response to the harsh realization that death approached. He did not know what to do. He wanted to help Walker, to make him whole again, to restore him to who he had been when they had first met all those months ago. He wanted to say something about how much the Druid had done for him. But all he could do was hold his sister’s hand and wait to see what would happen.
“This is as far as I go,” Walker said softly, coughing blood and wincing with the pain the movement caused.
Truls Rohk wiped the blood away with his sleeve. “You can’t die on me, Druid. I won’t allow it. We’ve too much more to do, you and I.”
“We’ve done all we’re allowed to do, shape-shifter,” Walker replied. His smile was surprisingly warm. “Now we must go our separate ways. You’ll have to find your own adventures, make your own trouble.”
The other grunted. “Not likely I could ever do the job as well as you. Game-playing has always been your specialty, not mine.”
Bek knelt beside them, pulling Grianne down with him. She let him place her however he wished and did nothing to acknowledge she knew he was there. Truls Rohk edged away from her.
“I’m done with this life,” Walker said. “I’ve done what I can with it, and I have to be satisfied with that. Make certain, when you return, that Kylen Elessedil honors his father’s bargain. His brother will stand with you; Ahren’s stronger than you think. He has the Elfstones now, but the Elfstones won’t make the difference. He will. Remember that. Remember as well what we made this journey for. What we have found here, what we have recovered, belongs to us.”
Truls Rohk spat. “You’re not making any sense, Druid. What are you talking about? We have nothing to show for what we’ve done! We’ve claimed nothing! The Elfstones? They weren’t ours to begin with! What of the magic we sought? What of the books that contained it?”
Walker made a dismissive gesture. “The magic contained in the books, the magic I spoke of to both Allardon Elessedil and his son, was never the reason for this voyage.”
“Then what was?” Truls Rohk was incensed. “Are we to play guessing games all night, Druid? What are we doing here? Tell us! Has this all been for nothing? Give us something to hope for! Now, while there’s still time! Because I don’t think you have much left! Look at you! You’re—”
He couldn’t make himself finish the sentence, biting off the rest of what he was going to say in bitter distaste.
“Dying?” Walker spoke the word for him. “It’s all right to say it, Truls. Dying will set me free from promises and responsibilities that have kept me in chains for longer than I care to remember. Anyway, it’s only a word.”
“You say it, then. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
Walker reached up with his good hand and took hold of the other’s cloak. To Bek’s surprise, Truls Rohk did not pull away.
“Listen to me. Before I came to this land, before I decided to undertake this voyage, I went into the Valley of Shale, to the Hadeshorn, and I summoned the shade of Allanon. I spoke with him, asking what I could expect if I chose to follow the castaway’s map. He told me that of all the goals I sought to accomplish, I would succeed in only one. For a long time, Truls, I thought that he meant I would recover the magic of the books from the Old World. I thought that was what I was supposed to do. I thought that was the purpose of this voyage. It wasn’t.”