Dropping his sword, he staggered backwards. The wronk had quit moving, but a few lights still blinked from the panels on its chest. Then an arm stump twitched. Crying out in rage and fear, Quentin picked up his blade one final time and chopped at the body and limbs until nothing remained but scraps of metal and bits of flesh.
He might not have stopped then except that out of the corner of his eye he saw Tamis collapse. Closing off the magic as if it were an addiction he must quit forever, feeling how close he was to losing himself to it, he threw down his sword and went to her. He dropped to his knees, turned her over gently, and cradled her head and shoulders in his lap.
Her eyes stared up at him. “Is it done? Is he free?”
He nodded, his throat tight. The front of her tunic was a mass of blood and torn flesh.
“Wherever I’m going, I’ll find him there,” she whispered. A froth of blood coated her lips.
He touched her cheek with shaking fingers. “Tamis, no.”
“I’m so cold,” she whispered.
Her eyes fixed, and she stopped breathing. Quentin held her for a long time anyway. He talked to her when she could no longer hear. He told her she would have what she wanted, she would have Ard Patrinell, that she deserved to find him waiting and he would be. He whispered good-bye to her. He was crying freely, but he didn’t care.
When he laid her down again and rose, he felt as if he had lost his place in the world and would never find it again.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Enveloped by the slow, steady thrumming of Castledown’s machinery, Ahren Elessedil walked back through the long rows of towering metal cabinets and spinning silver disks that occupied the cavernous chamber outside Walker’s smoked-glass prison. He did not like leaving Ryer Ord Star alone to look after the Druid, did not feel at all certain that he was doing the right thing, but knew, as well, he could not turn back. The voice inside him generated by the magic of the phoenix stone was firm and compelling. The missing Elfstones lay ahead, somewhere else in the complex, waiting for him to retrieve them. He must do as the voice insisted if he was ever to find himself again and be made whole. He must go to where the Stones were. He must take them back.
He watched the dark glass of Walker’s chamber disappear into the warren of cabinets behind him, and when it was out of sight, his loneliness was palpable and his feeling of vulnerability acute. The haze of the phoenix stone’s magic was beginning to dissipate, to lose its consistency, to become more penetrable. It was a gradual change, and at first he was not certain he was seeing it accurately. But as he got clear of the brightly lit central chamber and walked back into the darker corridors beyond, it became increasingly apparent that he was not mistaken, that the stone’s magic was failing. He immediately felt pressed and harried by the knowledge, as if he must move faster than he would have liked or than was reasonable. It was an irrational response, because he had no real idea of what the magic’s lifetime might be. Then again, not much of what he had done since entering Castledown had anything to do with being rational.
He knew that Ryer’s magic would be lessening, as well. When it was gone, she would have to rely on her connection with Walker to survive. In a way, she was better off with the Druid. At least Walker could offer her protection once he woke and freed himself. Without the magic of the phoenix stone, there was little that Ahren could do for her. Little that he could do for himself, for that matter.
Still, he would listen to the voice and go on, because the voice was all he had to rely on.
He climbed the stairs to the overlook they had come upon earlier, then moved back into the maze of corridors beyond. He took the path his instincts told him to take, keeping close watch over the shadows pressing close about him. The flameless lamps threw down their light in dim pools, but the stretches between were like quicksand. He repeatedly encountered creepers on their way to other places, and each time he stopped where he was and waited for them to attack. But the creepers still did not see or sense him, and they did not slow. He heard the skitterings of their approaches and departures, scrapings of metal that raised the hair on the back of his neck. He wished again he was braver and stronger. He wished he had Ard Patrinell to assure him that he would be all right. He kept thinking how comforting that would be. But Patrinell had taught him everything he would ever teach him and told him everything he would ever tell him. Patrinell was gone.