He stared at her, not knowing what to say. "Then you'll give up on this idea, won't you? Come with me instead, back to the coast. We can wait for the Jerle Shannara there. We can hide until she returns. Maybe we can find Tamis again, maybe one or two others who might have escaped. They can't all be dead, can they? What about Bek? Won't he try to find his way back to that clearing?"
She brushed back her long hair and folded her hands into her lap, tucking them between her legs like a little girl. Her violet eyes were depthless and filled with pain as they fixed on him. He was suddenly certain that although she was no older than he was, her experience with life's vicissitudes was far greater than his own.
"Let me tell you something about Walker and me," she said quietly. "Something I haven't told anyone. When we left the island of Shatterstone and he was sick from its poison, I sat with him in his cabin. Bek was there, as well. Joad Rish was doing everything he knew to help Walker, but nothing was working. After several days it became clear to all of us that Walker was dying. The poison was in too deep, and it was infused with the magic of that place and the spirit who warded it. Walker's own magic could not give him sufficient protection against what was happening. He couldn't make himself well again without help."
She smiled. "So I used my own skills to heal him. I am a seer, but an empath, as well. My empathic powers allow me to absorb the hurt in others so that they can better mend. It is a draining and debilitating effort, but I knew there was no other choice. Know this, Elven Prince. I would have died gladly for him. He is special to me in a way you know nothing about and I don't care to discuss. What matters is that in healing him, I formed a link with his subconscious. I think it was intentional on his part, but I cannot be sure. I became joined to him through the bond created by my willingness to give up something of my life in order to save his. It happens now and then with empaths, though usually it fades after the healing is finished. It did not do so here. It continued. It continues now."
He studied her carefully in the silence that followed. "Are you saying Walker is communicating with you? That you can hear him speaking?"
"After a fashion, yes. Not words exactly. More a presence that comes and goes and suggests things. He is there in my mind, whispering to me that he is alive and well. I can feel him. I can sense him reaching out to me. It is the link we share, he and I, forged of a blending of our lives, of our magic, of the experience shared when he was dying and I saved him."
She paused. "Do you remember when he was trapped on Shatterstone and Bek warned us he needed help? Walker called to him because Bek shares his magic, and he can reach out to Bek when it is needed. A Druid's tool. But I heard it, too. Walker didn't call to me, but I heard his voice in my mind, as well. Because we're linked, Elven Prince. I hear his voice now, except that this time it is meant for me and no other. He speaks to me through images, fragments of what he is experiencing. He is in trouble, trapped underground, beneath these ruins, beneath that tower. He is deep in a maze of catacombs that lie below this city. Castledown is not up here, Elven Prince. It is down there."
"So the treasure and whatever wards it-"
"Is there, as well, the one secreted away, the other watching everything, controlling what happens aboveground as well as below. Walker tells me this in his images, in my visions and dreams, but in my subconscious, as well. He doesn't tell me everything, because he does not feel safe doing so. But he tells me what he can, what he must. He is in trouble, and he clings to me as he might a broken spar on a shipwrecked sea. He is adrift and lost, and I am his lifeline back."
She waited for his response. He did not have one to give. He wasn't sure if he believed it all or not. She might be confused, misled, or delusional from the events of yesterday afternoon. She seemed lucid and assured, but you couldn't always tell another person's state of mind from the way they looked and sounded.
"Is he asking you to come to him?" he said finally.
Suddenly she seemed confused, as if the question had presented a new dilemma for her. "No," she replied after a moment. "He clings to me without revealing I am here. It is a reaching that asks nothing of me." Tears filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks.
"But I will go to him anyway. I will because I must. There is no one else, no one left but me. And you, if you will go with me."
He would do no such thing, Ahren thought, certain that it was suicide to go back into the maze under any circumstances. He was filled with dread at the prospect and riddled with fear by his memories of that encounter. He couldn't help himself. He was still fighting to come to terms with his failure to fight, his abandonment of his friends, and the shame he felt as a result of both. But even his growing desire to redeem himself was not enough to make him go back into that maze. The best he could do for Ryer Ord Star was to convince her she was making a mistake.
"How will you get into that tower?" he asked, looking for a way to reach her.
She shook her head. "I don't know."
"If you do get in, how will you find Walker? If he isn't summoning you, isn't calling to you, how will you track him?"