Ilse Witch

“No, Bek, no!” she was crying out over and over, as if she had been doing so for a long time, as if she had been seeking to reach him through stone walls and he had not heard.

He stared down at her stricken face without comprehension, wondering at the pain and despair he found there. He had saved them, hadn’t he? He had found another use for his magic, one that he had not even suspected. He had tapped into power that transcended even that of the Sword of Leah—perhaps even that of Walker himself. What was so wrong with what he had done? What, that made her so distraught?

Tamis was at his side, reaching down for the seer and pulling her back to her feet, her young face grim and blood-streaked. “Run, don’t look back!” she commanded at Bek, shoving Ryer Ord Star into his arms.

But he did look. He couldn’t help himself. What he saw was nightmarish. The maze was alive with creepers and threads of red fire. Ryer Ord Star’s vision had engulfed them all. His eyes stung with tears. Nothing human could live in there. Screams rose out of the gloom, and explosions rent the air with wicked flashes of light. What had become of Ard Patrinell and Ahren and Panax? What about Quentin? He remembered their promise, brothers in arms, each to look out for the other. Shades, what had become of that?

“Run, I said!” Kreshen screamed in his ear.

He did so then, charging through the gloom with Ryer Ord Star hanging off one arm as she struggled to keep up. She was keening again, a high soft wail of despair, and it was all he could do to keep from trying to silence her. Once, he glanced over, thinking to stop her. She ran with her eyes closed, her head thrown back, and a look of such anguish on her face that he let her be.

Shards of bright magic flickered in his eyes, hauntings of the legacy he had uncovered and embraced, whispers of a power released. Too big a legacy, perhap1s. Too much power. A yearning for more speared through him, an unmistakable need to experience anew the feelings it had released. He gasped at the intensity of it, breathing quickly and rapidly, his face flushed, his body singing.

More, he kept thinking as he fled, was necessary. Much more, before he would be satisfied.

Moments later, the chaos of the maze behind them, the screams and flashes of fire fading, they disappeared into the gloom and the mist.

They ran for a long time, all the way back through the ruins and into the forest beyond before Tamis brought them to a halt in a shadowed stand of hardwoods. With the damp and the mist all about, they crouched in the silence of the trees as the sound of their heartbeats hammered in their ears. Bek bent over, gasping for air, his hands on his knees. Beside him, Ryer Ord Star still keened softly, staring off into space as if seeing far beyond where they huddled.

“So cold and dark, metal bands on my body, emptiness all around,” she murmured, lost in some inner struggle, not aware of anything or anyone about her. “Something is here, watching me …”

“Ryer Ord Star,” he whispered roughly, bending close to her.

“There, where the darkness gathers deepest, just beyond …”

“Can you hear me?” he snapped.

She jerked as if she had been struck, and her hands reached out, grasping at the air. “Walker! Wait for me!”

Then she went perfectly still. A strange calm descended on her, a blanket of serenity. She sank back on her heels, kneeling in the gloom, hands folded into her robes, body straight. Her eyes stared off into space.

“What’s wrong with her?” Tamis asked, bending down beside Bek.

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

He passed his hand in front of her eyes. She neither blinked nor evidenced any recognition of him. He whispered her name, touched her face, and then shook her roughly. She made no response.

The tracker and the boy stared at each other helplessly. Tamis sighed. “I’ve no cure for this. What about you, Bek? You seem to be full of surprises. Got one to deal with this?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

She brushed at her short dark hair, and her gray eyes stared at him. “Well, don’t be too quick to make up your mind about it. What happened back there with those creepers suggests you’ve got something more going for you than the average cabin boy.” She paused. “Magic of some sort, wasn’t it?”

He nodded wearily. What was the point of hiding it now? “I’m just finding out about it myself. On Mephitic, I was the one who found the key. That was the first time I used it. But I didn’t know it could do this.” He gestured back toward the ruins, toward the creepers he had destroyed. “Maybe Walker knew and kept it a secret. I think Walker knows a lot of things about me that he’s keeping secret.”

Tamis sat back on her heels and shook her head. “Druids.” She looked off into the trees. “I wonder if he’s still alive.”