When she had asked the Ard Rhys, Khyber had told her she was not to go down there again. What lived there was ancient and immutable and should be left to slumber undisturbed until the end of time.
She had not pressed the matter further, just happy to know she needn’t go back. Now she wished she had insisted on knowing more. Perhaps some of what was happening now might have been avoided.
The main tower was a huge structure settled at the north end of the Keep, thick and massive in its look, but deceptive, as well. Nowhere was it evident that it tunneled into the earth much farther than it rose above it, and nowhere did the Outer Walls reveal the nature of the unpleasantness trapped within.
Only when she opened the huge ironbound door that led into the depths of the tower and began her descent was she reminded of what was concealed from the world outside. Stone stairs wound downward into endless darkness amid smells and tastes so unpleasant and sounds so insidious they made her cringe. She shuddered in spite of herself, trying in vain to close off the assault on her senses, to push back against the physically intimidating presence the tower’s walls exuded. Her entire being screamed at her to turn and flee back from where she had come, to warn her that to continue meant an encounter so terrible she could not expect to survive it.
Yet she did not turn back. Driven by her fear of what was at stake, compelled by the knowledge that only she could discover the truth behind the Keep’s insistent whispering, she kept going. The descent was not easily made, but her Druid training and her strong sense of responsibility buttressed her efforts. She had not told anyone what she was going to do. Woostra would know, of course, but if anything happened to her it was difficult to tell how much time might pass before he noticed she was missing.
She heard the whisper of the voice almost immediately—the familiar susurration of words and phrases that almost made sense and to which she could almost put meaning. In her heart, she knew she had done the right thing by coming. The voice reflected a sense of relief; she was expected and she had not disappointed. She was where she should be, the voice was saying. She was where she was needed.
Dampness formed on her exposed skin, cloying and chill. The air was stale and thick with age and closeness. Nothing born of the pit, nothing that resided within its stone vault, ever saw anything of the outside world. Here, things did not change. What was so a thousand years ago was still so today. Imprisoned by stone and time, this tunnel into the earth’s center was an encapsulated environment, its components immutable.
She hated everything about it, but did not reveal her feelings by voice or gesture, believing it wiser—however irrational—to keep her distaste hidden.
The voice was growing clearer, the words beginning to form images that wormed their way through her subconscious to where she could glimpse them in her mind’s eye. Even so, she wasn’t sure at first what she was seeing. The images were in a context she did not recognize. She slowed her descent and then stopped altogether on one of the tiny platforms that marked her downward progression, pressing back against the stone of the tower wall and closing her eyes tightly.
Something creeps and climbs …
Something green and lacking in substance but filled with dark intent and raw hunger …
Something skitters through the darkness, figures hunched over and crawling like rats …
Something feral waits …
Something huge and violent bursts from darkness into light amid splashes of red and screaming so terrible and futile and endless …
She blinked rapidly in shock, reopening her eyes and staring out into the gloom of the tower and then into the deeper darkness of the pit. She could hear a wicked hissing, and she knew there was something alive down there. And just as she had known six years earlier, she knew at once what it was.
The magic that lived in the pit.
The magic that had dwelled there since Paranor was constructed. The magic she had come to find.
What was she to do? She wanted to turn and run. But she began to descend once more, moving to the next platform, deeper into the gloom. She was almost completely wrapped in darkness now, but she was afraid to use her magic to provide additional light, afraid it might attract the thing below. Afraid it might rise to seek her out. She never once doubted it was possible. She would listen to its voice and study the images the voice conjured, but she could not stand her ground if it came for her.
She knew she could not do that.
Aphenglow.
She heard her name spoken clearly and distinctly, but nothing more. It was so unexpected that for a moment she thought she was mistaken. She waited. The whispering began again, slow and insidious and menacing, solitary words spoken out of context, fragments of sentences stripped of relevance, and with them came the attendant images, newly formed and decidedly different, but every bit as terrible. She tried again to make sense of them, and failed.
She reached the next platform and halted once more, again leaning back against the tower wall, closing her eyes. Understanding would come to her, she felt. Some small knowledge, some recognition. The voice was trying to communicate but hadn’t found a way yet. Ancient language was all it knew. Images formed of words that didn’t quite connect or reveal were all it could manage.
Tell me, she whispered in her mind. Try.
The voice continued to whisper, scary hisses that suggested angry snakes, but its meaning remained obscure. She listened carefully, but she could not decipher it.
Tell me what you want.
She went down another level, tried again to understand, failed, and went down still another level. Now she was so deep she could hear the voice breathing and see the strange greenish glow of the resident magic. She was so frightened her hands were shaking. She could sense its power, and she felt dwarfed by it. She must not wake it. She must not. Its voice came to her from out of dreams and sleep, from a subconscious that transcended both. She did not know what this meant, but understood it should be left alone.
Yet she couldn’t do that. She needed it to speak to her. She needed to know what was happening.
Leave, Aphenglow.
The words stopped her where she was. She waited for the voice to say something further, but it stayed silent.
She turned toward the wall of the pit and placed her hands flat against its cold, damp surface, absorbing its rough feel, reaching for something more. What did the magic intend to do if she left? Which choice would it make for Paranor?
Don’t seal the Keep. She spoke to it in her mind, begging it to heed her. Please, don’t. This is our home.
The voice responded in rapid bursts, a flood of words, garbled and raw sounding:
… tunnels … boring machines … walls … compromised … matter … of time … cleansing …
Then, a shriek:
Get out! All of you! Now! Leave them to me!
The words exploded inside her mind, disjointed and wild, and she jerked away from the wall in response to their blackness and rage, averting her face, cringing in fear.
In the pit beneath her, the greenish mist heaved upward as if trying to break free, and the hissing it emitted was slow and fierce and penetrated to her core.
But she understood now what the voice was trying to tell her. She knew what was going to happen.
Take them! she screamed in response, the words white-hot coals in her mind. But spare the Keep!
In spite of her damaged leg, heedless of the pain it caused her, she flew up the stone stairs, back out of the darkness and into the light.