And suddenly, startlingly, she saw everything. It had been told to her at the Valley of Shale, but she had not understood. Savior and destroyer, Bremen had named her, risen from the Hadeshorn to summon Allanon. Savior and destroyer.
She leaned weakly against the stone railing as the impact of it struck her. It was not within the Maelmord that she must look to find her answers—not within the pit.
It was within herself!
She straightened then, her dark face savage with the certainty of what she knew. How easy it was going to be for her to pass into the Maelmord and to find what she sought! There was no need for her to force a path within this being that kept watch over the Ildatch—no need, even, to search the Ildatch out. There would be no struggle here, no confrontation of magics.
There would instead be a joining!
She descended the final steps of the Croagh until she stood at last at its end. The roof of the jungle above her, seemed to close suddenly about, shutting away the sunlight, leaving her wrapped in shadows, heat, and the unbearable stench. But it no longer bothered her to be here. She knew what it was that she had to do, and nothing else mattered.
Gently, she sang. The wishsong rolled forth, low, hard, and eager. The music flooded the massive tangle of limbs, vines, rampant brush. It stroked and soothed with a deft touch, then wrapped about and cloaked with warm reassurance. Accept me, Maelmord, it whispered. Accept me into you, for I am like you. For us, there is no difference of kind. We are the same, our magics joined. We are the same!
The words that whispered in the music should have horrified her, but they were strangely pleasing. Where once the wishsong had seemed but a marvelous toy with which she might amuse herself—a toy to play with color and shape and sound—the vastness of its use had at last revealed itself to her. It could be anything. Even here, where evil lay strongest, she could belong. The Maelmord was created to prevent anything from entering that was not in harmony with it. Even the strength inherent in the wishsong’s magic could not overcome the basic purpose of its existence. But so versatile was the magic that it could forsake strength for cunning and make Brin Ohmsford appear kindred to whatever might stand against her. She could be in harmony with the life in this pit—and she could do so for as long as it might take to reach what it was she sought.
Exhilaration soared through her as she sang to the Maelmord and felt it respond. She was crying, so intense was the feeling that bound her to the music. The jungle swayed in response about her, its limbs bending and its vines and scrub curling like snakes. The music she sang whispered of the death and horror that gave life to the valley. She played a game with it, immersed within her self—creation so that she could be thought nothing less than what she wished to appear.
She drifted deep into herself, bound up in the song she sang. Allanon and the journey that had brought her were forgotten, as were Rone, Kimber, Cogline, and Whisper. Barely remembered was the task she had come to complete—to find and destroy the Ildatch. The release of the magic brought again the strange and frightening sense of glee. She could feel her control slipping away, just as had happened when she had used the wishsong against that Spider Gnome on Toffer Ridge and the black things in the sewers. She could feel the threads of herself unraveling. But she must risk it, she knew. It was necessary.
The breathing of the Maelmord rose and fell more quickly now and the hissing was more intense. It wanted her, had need for her. It found in her a vibrant piece of itself, the heart of the body that lay rooted there, missing for so long, but now returned. Come to me, it hissed. Come to me!
Her face alive with excitement and need, Brin passed from the Croagh into the jungle beyond.
“There has got to be an end to these sewers, for cat’s sake!” Rone was insisting to Kimber and Cogline as he stepped clear of the tunnel passage into the cavern beyond. It seemed to him in his frustration that they had been stumbling about in the sewers of Graymark forever.
“There doesn’t have to be anything of the sort!” Cogline snapped back, as disagreeable as ever.
But the highlander barely heard, his attention focused instead on the cavern into which they had passed. It was a massive chamber, its roof cracked so that hazy sunlight flooded downward in bright streamers and its floor split down the center by a monstrous chasm. Wordlessly, Rone hurried forward along the chasm’s edge, his eyes sweeping toward the stone bridge that spanned it. Beyond the bridge, the cavern stretched away to a high, arched alcove of polished stone, scrolled in some ancient markings and opening into daylight and the green of a misted valley.
The Maelmord, he thought at once.
And that’s where Brin will be.
He bounded onto the bridge and crossed, the old man and the girl hurrying after. He was moving toward the alcove when Kimber’s sharp cry brought him about.
“Highlander, come look!”
He turned and walked quickly back. She waited for him at the center of the bridge, then pointed wordlessly as he came up. A great section of iron chain forming the bridge railing had snapped and broken. At her feet, streaks of blood lay drying on the stone.
The girl knelt and touched the blood with her fingers. “Not very old,” she said softly. “Not more than an hour.”
He stared at her in stricken silence, and the same unspoken thought passed between them. His hand came up quickly, as if to ward it off. “No, it can’t be hers…”
Then a scream rent the air, shrill and terrifying—the scream of an animal filled with rage and fear. It shattered the stillness and their thoughts and left them frozen. It came. from beyond the alcove.
“Whisper!” Kimber cried.
Rone whirled. Brin!
He sprang from the bridge to the cavern floor and raced for the alcove’s passageway, both hands reaching back across his shoulder for the great broadsword strapped there. He was quick, but Kimber was even quicker. She went past him like a frightened animal, darting from the shadows of the cavern to the alcove and the light beyond. Trailing, Cogline called out in a furious attempt to slow them both, his voice high and shrill with desperation, but his crooked legs too slow to keep up.
Then they were through the alcove and into the light, with Kimber a dozen yards in front of Rone. There was Whisper, locked in battle with a pair of faceless black things on a narrow rock shelf before them, a blur of motion and darkness. Beyond, on a stone stairway that wound downward from the cliffs to the ledge and the valley below—on a stairway that Rone knew at once to be the Croagh—one of the Mord Wraiths stood watching.
At the approach of the girl and the highlander, the Mord Wraith turned.
“Kimber, look out!” Rone howled in warning.
But the girl was already springing to Whisper’s aid, long knives appearing in both hands. The Wraith pointed toward the girl and red fire exploded from its fingers. The fire lanced past the girl, missing her somehow, and fragments of rock flew into the air as it struck. Rone sprang forward with a cry, the ebony blade of the Sword of Leah held before him. The Wraith turned toward him instantly, and the fire burst forth a second time. It hammered at the highlander, caught on the blade of the sword, and the whole of the air about him turned bright with flame. The force of the blow lifted him clear of the ground and threw him back.
Then Cogline appeared from out of the caverns, old, bent, and fierce as he screamed at the Wraith in challenge. A little bit of flesh, bone, and cloth, he skittered toward the black-robed form. The walker swung about, pointing. But the old man’s sticklike arm whipped forward, and a dark object flew from his hand, hurtling into the Wraith’s crimson fire. A tremendous explosion rocked the whole of the mountainside. Flames and smoke geysered skyward from the stem of the Croagh, and bits of shattered rock flew everywhere.