Flattened against a wall, he watched a cluster of fire threads crisscross the passageway ahead, blocking his advance. He could not understand it. Whatever he did seemed only to make things worse. No matter how careful he was, he could not elude his pursuers. It was as if they knew what he was going to do before he did it. That should not be possible. He was cloaked in Druid magic, which hid him from everything. His pursuers should not be able to see where he was or what he was about. He should have lost them long ago. Yet there they were, at every turn, at every juncture, waiting on him, striking at him, hemming him in.
He edged back through a doorway that led down a narrow corridor to a larger passage. For a moment, the fire threads were left behind. He took deep, life-giving breaths of air, his throat on fire from running, and his chest tight and raw. He tried to think what to do, but his mind would not respond. His thinking, once so precise and clear, had turned muddled and thick. Exhaustion and stress would have contributed to that, but it was something more. He simply could not reason, could not make his thoughts come together coherently, could not consider in a balanced way. He knew to run and he knew to defend himself, but beyond that his mind refused to function. It locked away all thoughts of the past, everything that had led to his present predicament; all of it had turned to vague, surreal memories. Nothing mattered to him anymore. Nothing but the here and now and his battle to stay alive.
He knew it was wrong. Not morally, but rationally-it was wrong. It made no sense that he should think that way. He fought against it, struggled to get a handle on the problem so that he could twist it around and make it right again, but nothing he attempted worked. He was adrift in the moment, with no sense that he could ever get himself out.
There was a stairway at the end of the larger corridor, and he raced to gain it ahead of his pursuers. It led upward toward fresh light, a brightness more genuine than the flameless lamps of his prison. He charged up the stairs into its glow, thinking that at last-at last!-he had found his way free. He gained the head of the stairs and found himself in a cavernous chamber with tall windows opening to blue sky and green trees. His fatigue and despair forgotten, he rushed to the closest one and peered out. There was a forest beyond the wall of the chamber, so close it seemed he could reach out and touch it. Somehow he had fled far enough that he was all the way to the edge of the city. He wheeled about, searching for a door. There was none to be found.
Behind him, he heard the clank and whir of creepers on the stairs. In desperation, he sent the Druid fire lancing into the glass windows. It struck their clear surface and bounced harmlessly away. Walker stared in disbelief. That wasn’t possible. Glass could not deflect Druid magic. He moved quickly down the line of windows and tried again, on another pane, then a second and third. They, too, held fast.
The creepers appeared at the head of the stairs. He lashed out at them in fury and frustration, burning those closest, sending their scrap metal leavings back down the well into the others.
He caught sight of a deep alcove he had missed before. Nestled within its shadowy confines was a small wooden door. He moved quickly toward it, found its lock old and rusted, and burned it away with barely any effort. The door collapsed on its broken hinges, and he kicked it aside, pushing through to the fresh air and sunshine beyond.
A jungle rose all about him, vast and impenetrable, stretching away against the open sky like a wall. He plunged into it, heedless of what waited, knowing only that he had to get away from what followed. Thick grasses and tangled vines choked off any clear passage through the massive trees. Walker twisted and fought his way ahead, buoyed by the smell of rotted wood and leaves, by the warm glow of the sun and the feel of soft earth beneath his feet.