29
By the time she regained the ground floor of the main tower, safely out of the black pit that housed the ancient magic she had gone to find, Aphenglow Elessedil was a mess. Her clothes were disheveled and stained with damp and sweat, her face and hair were smudged with dirt, and her leg ached so badly she could barely walk on it. She limped from the tower to the adjoining courtyard and crossed to the steps leading up to the ramparts of the Inner Wall, searching for anyone at all. She was scared and frantic and desperate to impart what she knew.
She had so little time, she kept thinking. So very little.
She was close to collapse when she encountered Krolling descending the stone stairway she was coming up.
“Aphenglow?” he questioned in shock.
Everything was spinning. She toppled over and he caught hold of her. “Call the others,” she gasped. “I have something … I have to tell …”
Without a word, he picked her up like a child and carried her back up the stairs and along the ramparts. On the way, they found Bombax and several more of the Druid Guard, who fell into line behind them. Krolling took her all the way to the tower where her sleeping chambers were located and then into her bedroom, where he placed her carefully on her bed. By then, Arlingfant and Cymrian had appeared as well. Her sister ran out of the room in tears, but quickly returned with warm water and cloths and set about cleaning her up.
“What happened?” Bombax demanded, looking as if he wanted to inflict serious pain on someone. “Who did this to you?”
She shook her head. “No one. Find Woostra. I need … him here, too.”
She lay back again, closed her eyes, and gave herself over to Arlingfant’s tender hands, soothed by the feel of the damp cloth on her face, catching stray drops of water on her tongue and feeding them into her parched mouth. She couldn’t remember how she had gotten to this state, couldn’t imagine she had missed it happening. What she could remember was the descent into the pit, following the whispering of the voice, the lure of its beckoning, as she tried to discover what it wanted. What she could recall were the darkness and damp and the presence of the terrible thing that lived within them. She kept hearing its voice in her mind—the one that had spoken so clearly at the end—shrieking at her. She kept hearing it repeat the same words over and over.
Get out! Now!
Woostra came through the doorway, and they were all present save for the Trolls still on watch atop the Inner Wall. She forced herself to sit up, gently moving Arlingfant away. “Later,” she told her sister, silencing her protests.
“We’re compromised,” she told them, keeping her voice calm and steady. “The Federation is tunneling under Paranor’s walls out where we can’t see what they’re doing. They aren’t building siege machines; they’re burrowing into the Keep. They’ve discovered the magic that wards us doesn’t extend below the walls. We have to get out of here right away. I don’t know how much time we have, but I don’t think it’s a lot.”
“Aphen, wait a minute!” Bombax interjected. “How do you know all this?”
“The Keep told me.” She saw the mix of confusion and disbelief in his eyes. “Don’t doubt me on this, Bombax. Paranor has always spoken to me. The voice was always there. It was Woostra who suggested I might be hearing the old magic that dwells in the pit beneath the main tower. He told me it might be trying to tell me something and was doing so because Grianne’s wards were failing.”
She turned to face Woostra. “You were right. When I went into the tower, the voice began to whisper to me right away. At first, I couldn’t understand what it was saying. I went down into the pit. I went so far down I couldn’t see where I’d come from. The farther down I went, the clearer the whispering became. I began to understand words and then phrases. I could tell the voice was coming from the thing that lived in the pit, from the old magic conjured when Paranor was built. I could feel it stirring; I could see it moving …”
Bombax reached for her arm. “Aphen, calm down. Maybe you just thought …”
“Don’t patronize me, Bombax!” she shrieked at him in fury. “Just listen! I heard it! I saw it! It was real! And the last thing I heard was so terrifying I ran back up those stairs …”
She caught her breath, shook her head. “It wants to come out of there, whatever it is, whatever it intends, and it’s telling us we don’t want to be here when it does.”
Bombax nodded slowly, chastened. “All right, calm down. I believe you. I do. Don’t be angry with me. I just needed to be sure you believed yourself. You’re asking us to leave Paranor, Aphen. To abandon her to the Federation.”
“It isn’t exactly what she’s asking,” Woostra said, pursing his lips thoughtfully, giving the big Druid a long look.
Bombax hesitated. “You think the old magic won’t let that happen, that it will stop the Federation?”
“I think it will do whatever it needs to do to protect itself. I think it wanted Aphenglow to grant it permission to come out of the pit and put a stop to what’s being done to it. And it is warning us not to be here when that happens.”
“But we can’t allow that! Not without the Ard Rhys giving permission for it! Not without her even knowing!”
“We have no idea where she is,” Aphenglow pointed out. “And we don’t have time to find her.”
“She’s beyond helping us,” Woostra added. “Beyond even advising us. We have to make this decision on our own.”
There was a long silence as those gathered looked from face to face. “The first thing we have to do,” Aphenglow said finally, “is figure out how we’re going to get out of the Keep without getting killed.”
“We can use the tunnels,” Cymrian offered.
She shook her head quickly. “Not without chancing an encounter with the Federation. They’re inside already—or if not, close to being so. We don’t know which of the tunnels they are in. Probably, they are in more than one. Maybe, they are in all of them. Some of us might make it. But we have wounded and injured to consider. If we go, no one gets left behind.”
“If we split up, we might have a better chance of avoiding them,” Cymrian pressed.
“If we split up, we reduce our strength.” Bombax shook his head. “Then we risk being cut apart piecemeal. Besides, how will we ever find one another again once we’re outside?”
“If we get out, we still have to cross through the forest on foot to reach the Dragon’s Teeth,” Krolling added. “We’ll be hunted down by Federation flits.”
“Not if we’re careful enough to—” began Cymrian.
“But maybe the Federation will be too busy worrying about what’s coming after them in the—” interrupted Bombax.
“Wait, wait, wait!” Aphenglow exclaimed impatiently, cutting through the jumble of voices and silencing them. “We’ve forgotten something. What about the Druid Histories? Can they be protected?”
“Of course!” Woostra sounded almost indignant. “The Histories are protected by a magic that cannot be breached by anyone who isn’t a Druid. They’ve survived attacks on Paranor before. They’ll survive this one, too.”
“So how do we escape before this happens?” Bombax asked, looking at Aphenglow for an answer.
She pushed herself into a sitting position. “I don’t know. You and Cymrian figure it out. Arling, help me up.”
“But, Aphen—” her sister started to object.
“Help me up!” Aphen snapped.
She had spoken more harshly than she had intended but it was too late to take it back. Arling looked stricken, but moved to help her rise.
“I’m sorry,” Aphen whispered as her sister put her arms around her and lifted.
“It’s all right,” Arling whispered back.
Leaning on her sister, Aphen moved toward the sleeping chamber door. “I won’t be long,” she called back to the others. “Start packing whatever you think we might need to take with us. We leave as soon as I get back—one way or the other.”