«Rone, what happened to them?» the girl whispered harshly, her stunned voice drifting in the stillness.
The highlander’s hands still clasped the pommel of the Sword of Leah as he came back to his feet, his head slaking slowly. Smoke and debris drifted in the air across the mountain face, swirling hazily about them. The battered form of Whisper appeared like a ghost out of its curtain.
«Brin» Rone murmured softly in answer to Kimber’s question. He shook his head in disbelief. «It was Brin.»
And then he felt the first of the earth tremors ripple through the mountainside from the Maelmord.
Exhausted, Brin Ohmsford stared at the blackened stone of the tower floor where the remains of the Ildatch settled in a fine dust.
«Here is your dark child,” she whispered bitterly, tears streaking her face.
A deep shudder wracked the tower, rolling out of the earth and spreading through the aged walls. Stone and timber began to sag and crack, crumbling with the vibrations that wrenched at it. Brin’s head. jerked up, her eyes blinking against the shower of silt and dust that rained down into her face.
«Jair… ?» she tried to call to him.
But her brother was slipping from her, flesh and blood dissolving back into the hazy air, an apparition once more. A look of disbelief reflected in the Valeman’s face, and it seemed as if he were trying to tell her something. His shadowy form lingered a moment longer in the half–light of the tower’s gloom, and then he was gone.
Stricken, Brin stared after him. Great chunks of the tower’s stone began to fall about her, and she knew she could not stay. The dark magic of the Ildatch had come to an end, and everything it had made was dying.
«But I am going to live!» she whispered fiercely.
Gathering her cloak about her, she turned and ran from the empty room.
Chapter Forty–Six
The silver light flared above the waters gathered in the basin of Heaven’s Well and an apprehensive Slanter stumbled back away once more. There was an explosion of shimmering brilliance, a radiance as intense and blinding as the cresting of the sun at dawn, reaching out through the fading of the night. It streaked through the cavern’s dark shadows, burst into shards of white fire, and was gone.
Wincing, Slanter looked back again at the stone basin. Standing worn and battered at its edge was Jair Ohmsford.
«Boy!» the Gnome cried, a mix of concern and relief in his voice as he rushed to meet the Valeman.
Jair slumped forward in exhaustion, and the other caught him about the waist. «I couldn’t bring her out, Slanter,” he whispered. «I tried, but the magic wasn’t strong enough. I had to leave her.»
«Here, here — just take a moment to catch your breath,” Slanter growled as the Valeman stumbled over his words. «Sit here by the basin.»
He eased Jair down against the stone wall, then knelt next to him. The Valeman’s eyes lifted. «I went down into the Maelmord, Slanter — or at least a part of me did. I used the third magic — the one that the King of the Silver River gave to me to help Brin. It took me into the light and then out of myself — as if there were two of me. I went down into the pit where the vision crystal had shown me Brin. She was there, in a tower, and she had the Ildatch. But it had changed her, Slanter. She had become something… terrible…»
«Easy, boy. Slow down, now.» The Gnome held his gaze. «Did you find a way to help her?»
Jair nodded, swallowing. «She was changed, but I knew that if I could just reach her, if I could touch her and she could touch me — then she Would be all right. I used the wishsong to show her who she was, what she meant to me… to let her know that I loved her!» He was fighting back the tears. «And she destroyed the Ildatch — she turned it to dust! But when she did, the tower began to crumble, and something happened to the magic. I couldn’t stay with her. I couldn’t bring her back with me. I tried, but it happened so quickly. I couldn’t even manage to tell her what was happening! She just… disappeared, and I was back here again…
He dropped his head between his knees, choking. Slanter gripped his shoulders with rough, gnarled hands and squeezed.
«You did the best you could for her, boy. You did everything you could. You can’t blame yourself for not being able to do more.» He shook his wizened face. «Shades, I don’t know how it is that you’re still alive! I thought you lost in the magic! I didn’t think I’d ever see you again!»
Then he hugged Jair impulsively to him and whispered. «You got more sand than I do, boy — a whole lot more!»
He pulled away then, embarrassed by his action, muttering something about no one really knowing what they were doing in all this confusion. He was about to say something more when the tremors began — a series of deep, heavy rumblings that shook the mountain to its core.
«What’s happening now?» he exclaimed, glancing back across his shoulder into the shadows that shrouded the passageway that had brought them in.
«It’s the Maelmord,” Jair replied at once, pushing himself hurriedly back to his feet. The wound in his shoulder throbbed and ached as he straightened against the basin wall, and he clutched at the Gnome for support. «Slanter, we have to go back for Brin. She’s alone down there. We have to help her.»
The Gnome gave him a quick, fierce smile in reply. «Of course, we do, boy. You and me. We’ll get her out. We’ll go down into that black pit and we’ll find her! Now here, put your arm about my shoulders and hold on.»
With Jair clinging tightly to him, the Gnome began to retrace their steps back through the cavern toward the stairway that had brought them in. Dusk had settled down across the land, and the sun had slipped behind the rim of the mountains. Small slivers of the dying light fell through crevices in the rock to mingle with the twilight shadows as the two companions stumbled resolutely ahead. The tremors continued, slow and steady, a grim reminder that time was slipping from them. Chunks of rock and dirt showered down about them, forming a haze that hung like mist in the still evening air. There was a low rumbling in the distance like the thunder of an approaching storm.
Then they were clear of the cavern once more, passing from its darkened mouth onto the ledge that ran down to the Croagh. In the east, the moon and a scattering of stars were already visible in the velvet sky. Shadows lay in dappled patterns across the ledge face, closing about the last patches of fading light like inkstains spreading on new paper.
In the midst of the shadows and the half–light lay Garet Jax.
Stunned, Jair and Slanter came forward. The Weapons Master lay back against a gathering of rocks, his black–clad form torn and bloodied, the slender sword still gripped in one hand. His eyes were closed, as if he slept. Hesitating, Slanter knelt beside him.
«Is he dead?» Jair whispered, barely able to make himself speak the words.
The Gnome bent close for a moment, then drew back again. Slowly, he nodded. «Yes, boy — he’s dead. He finally found something that could kill him — something that was as good as he was.» There was grudging disbelief in his voice. «He looked hard enough and long enough to find it, didn’t he?»
Jair did not answer. He was thinking of the times the Weapons Master had saved his life, rescuing him when no one else could. Garet Jax, his protector.
He would have cried if he had been able, but there were no tears left to shed.
Slanter came to his feet and stood looking down at the still form. «Always wondered what it would be that would finally kill him,” the Gnome muttered. «Had to be something made of the dark magic, I guess. Couldn’t be anything made of this world. Not with him.»
He turned and glanced about apprehensively. «Wonder what’s become of the red thing?»
Tremors shook the mountain, and the rumbling rolled out of the valley. Jair barely heard it. «He destroyed it, Slanter. Garet Jax destroyed it. And when the Ildatch was shattered, the dark magic took it back.»
«Could have happened that way, I guess.»
«It did happen that way. This was the battle he had been seeking the whole of his life. It meant everything to him. He wouldn’t have lost it.»
The Gnome glanced over at him sharply. «You don’t know that for sure, boy. You don’t know that he was a match for that thing.»
