He raved on for a few moments more and then angrily swept everything aside and went down into the hold to sleep.
He was awake again when they reached the Dragon’s Teeth, and then all the way through the peaks and across the Forbidden Forest to the spires of Paranor. By then the day was easing toward sunset, and the sky to the east was darkening. Woostra had them set down in the same clearing where he had landed with the Elessedil sisters and Cymrian weeks ago when returning to discover information about the Bloodfire.
Then, leaving the others to keep watch, the Druid scribe departed with Railing for the tunnels that led into the Keep.
It took them little time to find the hidden entrance and make the underground journey into the fortress. Torches helped them navigate their way through the darkness, and no obstacles appeared to hinder their progress. Although Woostra proceeded with no apparent concern for what might be lying in wait, Railing couldn’t help listening for noises and searching for movement. He couldn’t seem to help himself, even though he knew that if anything were hiding in these tunnels, it would be on them before he could do anything about it.
But nothing happened, and once inside the walls of the Keep and aboveground, Woostra started directly for the tower where the Druid Histories and accompanying papers were concealed and where Khyber kept her sleeping chamber. Evidence of the Federation’s attack on the Keep had not been removed. Debris from broken walls and parapets still littered the courtyards through which they passed, and damage from fire launchers and rail slings still scarred the buildings surrounding them. Bodies lay everywhere, picked apart by birds of prey and other scavengers. The Keep itself was silent and devoid of life, and it was clear that the Federation had made no further attempt to occupy it.
“Guess the scavengers decided they could feast on the dead after all,” Woostra muttered. He glanced over. “Stay close to me. Don’t wander off.”
Fat chance of that, the boy thought. The heaped bodies and the extent of the carnage inflicted by whatever magic warded the Keep unnerved him. In the best of times, Paranor would be an intimidating place—cold and cavernous and filled with strange sounds. But turned into a charnal house, it was terrifying. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and as they passed down the lifeless corridors he could feel cold spots that froze his blood.
“Why isn’t the Federation army anywhere about if the magic’s gone back to wherever it came from?” he whispered.
Woostra glanced over. “They don’t know that Aphen has locked the magic away again. And they have no way of knowing what’s here without coming back inside the walls. They’re not about to do that after what happened to their fellows.” He paused. “Besides, Drust Chazhul is dead. Without his insistence on pursuing the attack, they’ve retreated to Arishaig. Edinja Orle will have a different take on things.”
Railing listened to the silence, unbroken save for the sound of their footsteps as they climbed flights of stairs and traveled down empty, echoing passageways crisscrossing the building. Rooms came and went, all of them deserted. Paranor felt as if it had been abandoned for centuries and not weeks. He tried to imagine what it would be like to live here, to be a Druid in residence, and he could not do so. It felt too closed away, too claustrophobic. He was a creature of open air and sunlight, and walls felt unnatural and unfriendly. He thought of his great-aunt living here, of her days as Ard Rhys, but any image he could form was incomplete and tinged with what he knew of her dark life, and it felt forced and unreal.