For a moment, she was quiet. He went back to staring off into the impenetrable dark, listening. “You haven’t thought it through far enough,” she whispered suddenly. She waited until he turned to look at her again. “Think about it. Your sword won’t work for just anyone, will it?”
Her steady gaze unnerved him. “No. It only works for me. So you’re saying it wants me, too.”
“Or parts of you, like Patrinell.”
His throat tightened, and he looked away. “I’ll die first.”
She didn’t say anything but put a hand on his arm. “What were you trying to tell me about his eyes back there in the tunnel? When we were running, you started to say something. You asked me if I’d seen his eyes.”
Quentin was quiet for a long time, remembering what he had seen, trying to overcome the revulsion that even thinking of it caused. Tamis kept her hand on his arm and her eyes on his face. “Tell me, Highlander.”
He sagged a little as he spoke, despair and fear taking fresh hold. “When we struggled underground below the ruins, I got a good look at those eyes. While I was grappling with it, I got close enough to see into them. They weren’t dead eyes. They weren’t soulless. They weren’t filled with anger or madness or anything I expected. They were frightened and trapped and helpless. I know it sounds impossible, but he’s still alive in there. In his head and brain. In what he sees and feels. He’s shut away in there. I could see it. I could tell. He was asking for help. He was begging for it.”
She was shaking her head, denial, rage, and fear twisting her features, her hand tightening on his arm until her nails bit into his flesh.
“He’s not attacking us because he wants to!” Quentin hissed. “He’s doing it because he doesn’t have a choice, because he’s been rebuilt to carry out the wishes of Antrax! He’s been mind-altered like those Elves who murdered Allardon Elessedil! Only there’s no body left, nothing whole. He’s-“ He caught himself. “He isn’t Ard Patrinell anymore, but Antrax has stolen something of who he was and is holding it prisoner inside that wronk.”
Something moved in the darkness, but the movement was small and quick. Quentin glanced out hurriedly, then back to Tamis.
“You could be wrong,” she insisted angrily.
“I know. But I’m not. I saw him. I saw him.”
There were fresh tears in her eyes. He caught their gleam in the moonlight. Her grip on his arm loosened. She blinked hard and looked away. “I can’t believe it. It isn’t possible.”
“The Rindge knew. They’ve seen it happen before with their own people. They tried to tell us.”
She shook her head and ran her fingers through her short-cropped hair. “It makes me sick. It makes me want to scream. No one should have to . . .”
She couldn’t finish. Quentin didn’t blame her. There were no words sufficient to express her feelings. What had been done to Ard Patrinell was so loathsome, so despicable that it left the Highlander feeling unclean.
And afraid, because there was every chance that Antrax intended that he come to the same end.
“We’ll have to kill him,” she said suddenly, looking over with such fierceness that it left him off balance. For a moment, he wasn’t certain who she was talking about. “Again, all over again. We can’t leave him trapped in there. We have to set him free.”
She took his hands in her own and gripped them tightly. “Help me do it, Highlander. Promise me you will.”
He saw it then, the reason for her passion. She had been in love with Ard Patrinell. He had missed that before, not seen even the barest hint of it. How had he been so blind? Maybe she had kept it well enough hidden that no one could have known. But there it was, out in the open, as certain as daylight’s return with the dawn.
“All right,” he agreed softly. “I promise.”
He had no idea how he was going to keep that promise, but his feelings on the matter were as strong as her own. He was the one who had looked into Ard Patrinell’s eyes and seen him in there, still alive. That was not something he could pretend never happened and would have no effect on him if he walked away from it. Like Tamis, he could not leave the Captain of the Home Guard a slave to a machine. The wronk had to be destroyed.