Aphen felt the need to explore the matter further.
In large part, this was because the Keep was speaking to her again.
It had begun to do so almost immediately after the last Federation assault had been broken. The voice spoke in whispers and sighs, in fragments of sentences and odd words, the language archaic and barely recognizable. Aphen, who knew at least parts of all the old Elven languages, nevertheless struggled with this one. The voice was plaintive and hushed, and in its tone she discovered more than what she could decipher from its words. Worry, a sense of urgency that lacked a source but was clearly important, and a harsh demand for action all came through clearly. It was a summons, and she understood in a way she could not explain that it was directed to her and her alone.
So she went back to Woostra, hoping he could explain what was happening, that his vast knowledge of the Keep and its secrets might give her the answers.
She found him in almost exactly the same place and position as he had been two days earlier, bent over his books, scribbling furiously.
“Aphenglow,” he greeted without looking up.
“Can you give me a moment?” she asked, seating herself at one end of a bench otherwise crammed with books and papers.
He lay down the pen and faced her. “I was wondering how long it would take you. You’re here about the voice, aren’t you?”
She stared. “Can you hear it, too? Do you hear it the same way you hear our footsteps and know whose it is?”
The wrinkles of his aged face deepened when he smiled. “It belongs to the Keep. I hear it, but I had to learn to listen for it. It doesn’t speak to me, as it does to you. But then you have always had a special connection to the Keep, haven’t you?”
She nodded.
“Can you understand what it says to you?”
She hesitated. “Sometimes. Not the words so much as the tone. I can feel it in my heart. Like now. It wants me to do something. It seems anxious, even desperate, for me to understand what that something is.”
The old man shook his head. “I don’t know that this has ever happened before, Aphen. The Keep sometimes responds to our needs, but I have been reading the Druid Histories and cannot find mention of it speaking to a Druid.”
“Then why is it doing so now?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been hearing the voice for years; I knew it was there. But it was only very recently I understood to whom it was speaking. I thought at first it was the Ard Rhys. But after she was in the Druid Sleep, it still whispered. Then, when you went to Arborlon, the voice stopped and I realized it must have been speaking to you. When you returned and it started up again, I was certain.”
“There’s no record of this ever happening before? Not even to Allanon or Grianne Ohmsford?”
“None. I have been reading through the Histories these past few days trying to discover if anything’s been written down about this. It struck me that this most recent effort to communicate is a warning. Something crucial is happening. I am speculating now, but I think the Keep is trying to tell you what that something is.”
She leaned forward eagerly. “Why would it do that?”
He hesitated, cocking an eyebrow at her. “I think it feels threatened in some way. I think it’s trying to protect itself. I think it wants you to help.”
She cocked an eyebrow back at him. “It seems to me the Keep’s done a pretty fair job of protecting itself.”
“Appearances can be deceiving. What has protected the Keep so far is magic conjured up and set in place by Grianne Ohmsford before Khyber Elessedil succeeded her as Ard Rhys. The magic Grianne created was powerful and effective, but it was not an original part of the Keep. Do you see where I’m going with this?”
She shook her head.
“There is a second, older magic that wards Paranor, one that dwells beneath the Keep’s main tower, deep underground. This magic was created when Paranor was brought into the world to serve as a home for the Druids, and its purpose is much darker. Do you know of it?”
“I’ve heard rumors,” Aphenglow said. “Tell me more. What does it do?”
“It can do a couple of things. It can be used to ward the Keep against intruders, even in the absence of its Druids. Walker Boh used it that way when he flew the Jerle Shannara to Parkasia. Once set in place, the magic will protect Paranor until any of the resident Druids return to release it from its task and reopen the Keep. Simple enough.”
He paused. “It can also serve a much darker purpose. It can be used to destroy every living thing it finds within Paranor’s walls and then to seal the Keep and hide it away. Poof! Everyone dead and the Keep disappeared. That has happened only once, when Allanon knew his life was ending and no Druids would be left to succeed him. Mord Wraiths had occupied the Keep and were destroying it, so he summoned the old magic. When it had finished with the Mord Wraiths, Paranor disappeared from the world of men.”
Aphenglow stared at him, appalled. “What are you saying? That you think the Druids are going to be wiped out a second time? That the Keep is asking to be closed away again?”
Woostra sighed wearily. “Pay attention, Aphenglow. The reason for the Keep’s insistence on communicating with you—in my opinion, mind you—is that it feels it is in danger. Perhaps Grianne Ohmsford’s wards are not sufficient to protect it. Perhaps it feels threatened by the Federation; perhaps something else is going on. Whatever the case, there are choices to be made, and I have just told you what they are. But I can’t tell you what you need to do. To find that out, you must go down inside the well that houses the old magic.”
“I don’t understand,” she insisted. “Why would going there help me?”
“Because you need to get close enough …” He trailed off sharply. “You really don’t know, do you? I thought you did. Don’t you understand? The voice comes from there.”
She shook her head. “What are you talking about? I thought it came from the Keep.”
“If you had listened more closely and tracked it to its source, you would have realized by now it doesn’t come from the Keep—it comes from within the pit!”
He held up one hand to stop her from interrupting. “Don’t ask me if I am sure of this because I most assuredly am. I discovered it for myself just the other day—the closer you get to the pit, the easier it is to understand the voice. Although I still can’t understand it the way you can. It is the old magic speaking, but you are the one it speaks to. If Paranor and the Druids are doomed, you are the one who needs to find out. If it’s simply a matter of setting the old wards in place, you need to find that out, too. But nothing can be determined without going to the source and hoping that proximity will provide you with the answers you require.”
He turned back to his books. “There, I’ve said everything I have to say on the matter. It’s up to you now. Maybe my speculations are entirely wrong. But I don’t think so.”
Aphenglow looked down at her hands where they rested in her lap. “But why has it chosen me?”
“Good question.” Woostra did not bother to look up. “You should ask it when you get close enough to do so.”
For long moments, Aphenglow sat there debating what the old man had told her. Then she stood and went out the door.
She really had no choice. If she wanted to test Woostra’s theory, she needed to enter the Keep’s main tower and descend from its lower levels into the huge pit that opened all the way down into the black center of the earth. She didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to be there even for the barest few seconds. She had gone into the pit only once, when she was newly come to Paranor and still exploring its boundaries, and she still regretted having done so. The cold and dark had a visceral feel, and she could sense the presence of something old and dangerous and inhuman. Magic, she had thought even then, dark and cunning, but she could not put a name to it.