Walker Boh felt a dark place inside shiver with the possibilities.
What was it that Quickening had really been sent to do?
XXVIII
At dawn the three left their concealment and went down into the streets. The rain had ceased to fall, the clouds had lifted above the peaks of the buildings, and the light was gray and iron hard. Silence wrapped the bones of Eldwist like a shroud, the air windless, unmisted, and empty. Far distant, the ocean was a faint murmur. Their footfalls thudded dully and receded into echoes that seemed to hang like whispers against the skies. Unsuccessfully, they searched the city for life. There was no sign of either Horner Dees or Pe Ell. The Rake had retreated to its daylight lair. The Maw Grint slept within the earth. And in his domed fortress, Uhl Belk was a dark inevitability awaiting confrontation.
Yet Walker Boh was at peace.
He strode before Morgan and Quickening, surprised at the depth of his tranquility. He had given so much of himself to the struggle to understand and control the purpose of his life, battling with the twin specters of legacy and fate. Now all that was cast aside. Time and events had rushed him forward to this moment, an implacable whirlwind that would resolve the purpose of his life for him. His meeting with the Stone King would settle the matter of who and what he was. Either he merited the charge that the shade of Allanon had given him or he did not. Either he was meant to possess the Black Elfstone and bring back Paranor and the Druids or he was not. Either he would survive Uhl Belk or he would not. He no longer questioned that his doubt must give way to resolution; he did not choose to mire himself further in the “what ifs” that had plagued him for so long. Circumstance had placed him here, and that was enough. Whether he lived or died, he would finally be free of the past. Was the Shannara magic alive within him, strong beyond the loss of his arm to the poison of the Asphinx, powerful enough to withstand the fury of the Stone King? Was the trust Allanon had given to Brin Ohmsford meant for him? He would find out. Knowledge, he thought with an irony that he could not ignore, was always liberating.
Morgan Leah was less certain.
Half-a-dozen steps back, his hand clasped in Quickening’s, the Highlander was a fragile shell through which fears and misgivings darted like trapped flies. In contrast to Walker Boh, he already knew far too much. He knew that Walker was not the Dark Uncle of old, that the myth of his invincibility had been shattered along with his arm, and that he was swept along on the same tide of prophecies and promises as the rest of them. He knew that he himself was even less able, a man without a whole weapon, bereft of the magic that had barely sustained him through previous encounters with far lesser beings. He knew that there were only the two of them, that Quickening could not intervene, that she might share their fate but could not affect it. He could say that he understood her need to gain possession of the Black Elfstone, her belief in her father’s promises, and her confidence in them—he could speak the words. He could pray that they would find some way to survive what they were undertaking, that some miracle would save them. But the fears and the misgivings would not be captured by words and prayers; they would not be allayed by false hope. They darted within like startled deer, and he could feel the beating of his heart in response to their flight.
What would he do, he wondered desperately, when the Stone King turned those empty eyes on him? Where would he find his strength?
He glanced covertly at Quickening, at the lines and shadows of her face, and at the darkly reassuring glitter of her eyes.
But Quickening walked beside him without seeing.
They passed down the empty streets toward the heart of the city, stalking like cats along the stone ribbon of the walkways, their backs to the building walls. They could almost feel the earth beneath them pulse with the Stone King’s life; they could almost hear the sound of his breathing through the hush. An old god, a spirit, a thing of incomprehensible power—they could feel his eyes upon them. The minutes slipped away, and the streets and buildings came and went with a sameness that whispered of ages come and gone and lives before their own that had passed this way without effect. An oppressive certainty settled down about them, an unspoken voice, a barely remembered face, a feathered touch, all designed to persuade them of the futility of their effort. They felt its presence and reacted, each differently, each calling up what defenses could be found. No one turned back. No one gave way. Locked together by their determination to make an end of this nightmare, they continued on.
In the east, dawn’s faint gray light brightened to a chilly silver mist that mingled with the clouds and left the city crystallized.
They caught their first glimpse of the dome shortly after and when Walker Boh, still leading, pressed them back into the shadows of the building they followed as if afraid the dome could see. He took them back along the walkway and down a secondary street, then over and down another, winding this way and that, twisting about through the maze. They slid along the dampness like a trail of water seeking its lowest level and never slowed. Their path meandered, but the dome drew closer beyond the walls that concealed them.
Finally Walker stopped, head lifting within the cowl of his dark cloak as if to sniff the air. He was lost within himself, casting about in the darkness of his mind, the magic working to lead him to where his eyes could not see. He started out again, taking them across a street, down an alleyway and out again, down another street to where a building entry opened onto a set of broad stairs. The stairs took them into the earth beneath the building, a dark and engulfing descent into a cavernous chamber where dozens of the ancient carriages of the old world sat resting on their stone tracks. Massive hulks, broken apart by time and age, the carriages gave the chamber the look of a boneyard. Light fell across the carcasses in narrow stripes, and dust motes decorated the air in a thin, choking haze.
The stairs went farther down, and the three continued their descent. They entered an anteroom with a circular portal set in the far wall, stepped through hesitantly, and found themselves back in the city’s sewers. The sewers burrowed in three directions into the darkness, catacombs wrapped in silence and the smell of dead things. Walker’s good hand lifted and silver light wrapped about it. He paused once more, as if testing the air. Then he took them left.
The tunnel swallowed them effortlessly, its stone walls massive and impenetrable, threatening to hold them fast forever. Silence was a stealthy, invisible watcher. They heard nothing of the Maw Grint—not a rumble, not even the tremor of its breathing. Eldwist had the feel of a tomb once more, deserted of life, a haven for the dead. They stretched ahead in a line, Walker leading, Quickening next, and Morgan last. No words were exchanged, no glances. They kept their eyes on the light that Walker held forth, on the rock of the tunnel floor they followed, and on the movement of the shadows they cast.
Walker slowed, then stopped. His lighted hand moved to one side, then the other. A faint glimmer caught the outline of a dark opening in the wall left and stairs beyond.
Once again they started down, following damp, slick, roughened steps through a wormhole in the earth. They began to smell the Tiderace, then to hear the faint roar of its waters against Eldwist’s shore. They listened closely, guardedly for the squealing of the rats, but it did not come. When they reached the end of these stairs, Walker took them right into a narrow gap studded with stone projections honed razor-sharp by nature and time. They moved slowly, inching their way along, hunched up close to each other to keep within the circle of the light. The dampness spread up the walls before them, a dark stain. Things began moving in the light, skittering away. Morgan caught a glimpse of what they were. Sea life, he recognized in surprise. Tiny black crabs. Were they far enough down from Uhl Belk that such things could live? Were they close enough to the water?
Then they emerged once more into the subterranean cavern that lay beneath the city. Rock walls circled away from the ledge on which they stood and the ocean crashed wildly into the rocks below. Mist churned overhead, draping the cavern’s farthest
reaches with curtains of white. Daylight brightened the shadows where the rocks were cleft to form small, nearly colorless rainbows against the mist.
The ledge ran away to either side, dipping, climbing, jagged and uneven, disappearing into rock and shadow. Walker Boh cast both ways, feeling for the presence he knew he would find, sensing the pulse of its magic. His eyes lifted toward the unseen. Uhl Belk.
“This way,” he said quietly, turning left.
Then the rumble of the Maw Grint’s waking sounded, elevating from a stir to a roar, and the whole of Eldwist shook with fury.
The plan was simple, but then simple plans were the ones that usually worked best. The only trouble with this one, thought Pe Ell as he stood in the shadows of the building across from the Rake’s lair, was that he was the one taking all the chances while Horner Dees remained safe and sound.
The plan, of course, had been the old man’s.
Like Quickening, Walker, and Morgan Leah, they had gone out at dawn, slipping from their refuge back to the streets, greeting the cheerless gray light with squinted eyes and suspicious frowns. A brief exchange of glances and they bad been off, going first to the Rake’s lair, then tracing the route that Pe Ell would lure the Creeper down. When Dees had satisfied himself that Pe Ell had memorized it, they hooked the old man’s harness in place, checked the leverage on the makeshift pulley, and parted company.
Pe Ell had backtracked to the Rake’s lair, and now there he stood, waiting.
Stealth and speed were what he would need, first the one, then the other, and not too much of either—an assassin’s tools.
He listened to the silence for a long time, judging the distance he must cover and measuring the retreat he would make. There would be no one to help him escape this time if things went wrong. His narrow face turned this way and that, lifted into the smell of the sea and the stone, knifed against the mist, sifted through the instincts that warned him the Creeper was still awake.
He smiled his cold, empty smile. The anger was gone. The anticipation of killing calmed him like Quickening’s touch, soothed him, and gave him peace. He was still and settled within himself, everything ready, in place, as sharp as the edge of the Stiehl and as certain.
Noiselessly, he crossed the street to the door of the lair. He carried the grappling hook and rope firmly in hand. Standing before the door, he tossed the hook skyward to wrap about the same stone projection they had used the previous night. The grappling hook caught with a sharp clang and held. Pe Ell backed away, waiting. But the door remained closed. The Rake had either not heard or was preparing itself for whatever would happen next. Pe Ell had hoped that the noise of the hook would bring the beast out and save him the trouble of making the climb. But he knew that was asking too much.
He took a deep breath. This was where the plan became really dangerous.
He stepped forward, grasped the rope that dangled from the grappling hook, and began to climb. He went swiftly, hand over hand, strong enough that he did not require the use of his legs. Once up, he gripped the release that triggered the hidden entry to the lair, yanked violently on it, and immediately dropped away, skinning down the rope like a cat. The door was already coming up when he struck the ground. There was a whisper of sound from within, and he sprang back instantly. A tentacle barely missed catching him, whistling past his feet. The Rake was already moving, lumbering forward, a nest of tentacles outstretched and grasping.
In another instant the door to the lair was completely up. The Creeper rushed forth, skittering madly, wildly, heedless of the fact that it was no longer night. Enraged by Pe Ell’s invasion, it gave immediate pursuit. The assassin raced away, darting just ahead of the maddened beast, racing into the shadows of the alleyway across the street. The Creeper followed, faster than Pe Ell had expected. For an instant he wondered if he had misjudged his chances. But there was no time to ponder the matter now, and the doubts evaporated in a surge of determination that propelled him forward.
Down the alleyway he ran and out into the adjoining street. He skidded to a halt. Careful of the traps, he thought. Careful you don’t get caught in one yourself. That was what they had planned for the Rake, the old man and he—a long drop down a deep hole, a drop into the bowels of Eldwist. If be could stay alive that long.
The Creeper crashed through the entry of the building next to him, choosing its own route now, almost catching him by surprise. He barely eluded the closest tentacles, knife thin as he twisted away, gone almost before the beast could track him. He darted along the building’s edge, the Rake in pursuit. The iron that armored the creature clanked and grated, thudded and scraped. He could feel the size of the thing looming over him, an avalanche waiting to fall. He went through one building, through a second, and emerged another street over. Close now, just two blocks more. But the beast? He turned, searching. He could hear it coming, but the sound seemed to project from everywhere at once. Where…?
Out from the shadows of a darkly recessed entry the Creeper tore, iron arms slamming into the earth inches from Pe Ell as the assassin leaped free. Pe Ell howled in fury and dismay.
So quick!
He wanted to turn and fight, to see the monster react to the cold iron of the Stiehl as he slashed its body to ribbons. He wanted to feel the Creeper die. Instead he ran once more, racing along the stone paths of the city, down the streets, along the building walls, through shadows and gray light, a wisp of something darker than night. Tentacles rustled and slithered after him, catching at doors and windowframes, tearing them apart, leaving showers of stone dust scattered in their wake. The massive body hammered and careened, and the legs tore at the walk. The Rake seemed to pick up speed, coming faster still. If daylight bothered it, if blindness inhibited it, it showed nothing of it here. Pe Ell could feel its rage as if it were palpable.
The chase took them down another street and around a final corner. Pe Ell could sense that he was losing ground. Ahead, the street deadended at a stone park. A basin of steps led down to a statue of a winged figure with streamers and ribbons trailing from its body—and to a trap, the same trap that had snared the old man and the Highlander days before.
Horner Dees was waiting, secured in his harness, standing at the edge of the hidden door, bait for the trap. Pe Ell leaped sideways to a walkway and picked up speed as the Rake rounded the corner behind him, tentacles whipping. He went past Horner Dees on the fly, caught a glimpse of his rough face, pale beneath the heavy beard, and sprang onto the wall where the lines securing the harness were laid. He pulled them taut, hoisting Dees out over the hidden pit. He heard the Creeper rumble into the street, heard Horner Dees yell. The Rake became aware of the old man, deviated direction slightly, and charged. Dees tried to backpedal in spite of himself as the juggernaut bore down on him, metal parts shrieking.
Then the trapdoor dropped open, and the monster began to fall. It tumbled wildly down the stone ramp, its armored body rasping. It had been so eager to reach the Tracker that it had forgotten where it was. Now it was caught, sliding away, disappearing from view. Pe Ell howled with delight.
But suddenly the tentacles lashed out and began snaring stone projections—a corner of the basin stairs, a section of a crumbling wall, anything within reach. The sliding stopped. Dust rose into the air, obscuring everything. Pe Ell hesitated, forgetting momentarily to pull in on the harness that secured Dees. Then he heard the old man scream. Yanking frantically on the ropes, he found they would not move. Something was pulling from the other end, something far stronger than himself. He had waited too long. The Rake had Horner Dees.
Pe Ell never hesitated. He wasn’t thinking of his promise; keeping his word had never much concerned him. He simply reacted. He dropped the ropes, leaped from the wall, and raced through the basin park into the street. He saw the old Tracker sliding across the stone toward the edge of the drop, hands grasping and feet kicking, a tentacle wrapped about his stout body. He caught up with Horner Dees just as the old man was about to be pulled from view. One
slice of the Stiehl severed the tentacle that bound him; a second severed the ropes of the harness.
“Run!” he screamed, shoving the bulky form away.
A tentacle snaked about him, trying to pin his arms fast. He twisted, the Stiehl’s blade glowing white with magic, and the tentacle dropped away. Pe Ell raced left, cutting at the tentacles that secured the Rake, severing its hold. There was dust everywhere, rising into the gray light, mingling with the mist until it was uncertain where anything lay. Pe Ell was moving on instinct. He darted and skipped through the tangle of arms, hacked at each, heard the scraping begin again, and the sliding resume.
Then there was a rush of metal and flailing arms and the Rake was gone. It dropped into the chute and fell, tumbling down into the chasm. Pe Ell smothered his elation, racing back the way he had come, searching for Dees. He found him crawling weakly along the basin stairs. “Get up!” he cried, hauling him to his feet in a frenzied lunge, propelling him ahead.
The earth behind them exploded, the street shattering apart, stone fragments flying everywhere. The two men stumbled and fell and turned to look.
The remaining pieces of Horner Dees’ plan tumbled into place.
Out of the depths of Eldwist rose the Maw Grint, awakened by the impact of the Rake’s fall, aroused and angered. The monster roared and shook itself as it lifted skyward, worm body glistening, all ridges and scales, so huge that it blocked even the faint gray daylight. The Rake dangled from its mouth, turning to stone as the poison coated it, its struggles beginning to lessen. The Maw Grint held it firm a moment, then tossed it as a dog might a rat. The Rake flew through the air and struck the side of a building. The wall collapsed with the impact, and the Rake shattered into pieces.