She nodded at once, her lips compressed, her gaze steady. He waited a moment to be certain of her; then shielding his movements from the sweeper, he reached into his tunic and pulled out the phoenix stone. He glanced down at its silvery surface, a glimmer of liquid light in his hand, then slipped it free of its chain.
You can use it only once, Bek had recalled. Only once, for casting it to the earth to release its magic will shatter it. Ahren looked at Ryer Ord Star, feeling for the first time in days that he was doing something right.
“Take my hand,” he said.
She did so, her eyes never leaving his. Then he took a deep breath, pulled her to her feet so that they were both standing, and cast the phoenix stone to the passage floor.
SIXTEEN
The instant the phoenix stone struck the floor and shattered, Ahren Elessedil and Ryer Ord Star were enveloped in a haze the color of old ashes. It swirled around them, a mix of tiny particles and smoky light, as though stirred by an unseen hand like soup in a cauldron. It clung to them in a cloud and never spread much farther than where they stood. Beyond its perimeter, the passageways of Castledown remained unchanged.
For a moment, the Elven Prince and the seer stayed where they were, uncertain, waiting to see what would happen. The little sweeper was staring right at them as if nothing had changed, insides whirring, lights blinking, motionless in the center of the corridor. Then it began to wheel right and left, its movements quickly growing more frantic. It appeared to be searching for them, as if it didn’t realize they were still right in front of it. Ahren pulled Ryer several steps to his left, testing whether or not the sweeper could see them. It did not turn toward them or register their movement in any way. It simply wheeled about aimlessly, trying to decide what to do.
Then an odd thing happened to Ahren. Within the mist of the phoenix stone, he felt an oddly compelling need to keep moving, to continue on without stopping. It was a sort of tugging in his chest, an unexpressed certainty about what he must do. He had never felt anything like it before. He glanced at Ryer and found her looking back at him. Without speaking, he gestured ahead, indicating what he wished. She nodded quickly. When he touched his chest, she did the same. She felt it, too. It was the magic of the phoenix stone at work. To find a way back after being lost, you must know where it is that you want to go. Unexpectedly, surprisingly, Ahren Elessedil did.
He moved a bit farther down the corridor, away from the hapless sweeper and its efforts to figure out what had happened to them. He held tightly to Ryer, afraid that if he released her, she would lose the protection of the magic. The smoky haze moved with them, an enveloping shroud, wrapping them as they proceeded, never changing its size or shape or perimeter. It was like being in an invisible bubble, shut away from the rest of the world, enclosed in an atmosphere and given over to a life that was denied to everyone but them.
Ahren was just wondering if Antrax knew what was happening to his carefully laid plans when the corridor ahead abruptly filled with creepers.
He stopped where he was, pulling Ryer against him protectively, watching as the metal crawlers slipped from openings in the walls like ghosts, metal limbs clutching knives and pincers and strange-looking cylinders. In a careful sweep, they came up the passageway, fanning out to both sides. Ahren’s throat tightened. There was no way past them. They were too many to avoid.
When he glanced hurriedly in the opposite direction, he found the other end of the corridor blocked, as well.
For a moment, he panicked; there was nowhere to run, no way to get clear. The jaws of the trap were closing, and he and Ryer were caught right in the middle. He stood his ground because there was nothing else to do, still holding to the seer with one hand while he drew free his long knife, his only weapon, with the other. I won’t run this time, he told himself. He would stand and fight, even if the struggle was hopeless. Maybe Ryer could break past in the ensuing struggle. Maybe at least one of them could . . .