Antrax

21

Insubstantial and ethereal as air, Walker began his search for the books of magic.

From the first, from the moment he had translated the writings on the map carried back to the Four Lands from Castledown by a dying Kael Elessedil, he had kept the truth about the books to himself. He did so in part to protect against attempts by others to interfere with his plans to undertake their recovery. The Ilse Witch had reached the dying Elven Prince before him and discovered what was at stake. Her subsequent interference had forced him to alter his plans time and again. So in that regard he had failed. But he had also kept the truth to himself to persuade Allardon Elessedil to his cause, and in that he had been more successful. If he was honest with himself, he would admit that he had hidden the truth in order to persuade the crew of the Jerle Shannara to accompany him. What he knew of the books and the consequences of reintroducing them to the Races was too overwhelming for others to deal with.

Nothing was as simple as everyone thought, the Ilse Witch included. All of them believed what Antrax had allowed Kael Elessedil to believe—that the books really were a compilation of magic’s uses. They weren’t. It was an easy enough deduction if you were schooled in the history of the Old World. It was apparent if you considered what Castledown really was—a storehouse for knowledge accumulated in a time and place in which magic was virtually unknown and almost never used. The Old World was a world of science, one in which no one had possessed magic since the time of Faerie; what had survived that world had been salvaged by the Elves, but they had lost virtually everything through neglect. A place like Castledown wouldn’t house books of real magic; it would house books of learning—of science, history, and culture.

Once, long ago, it would have been called a library.

This was not to say that the books were unimportant because they did not contain spells and conjuring and the like. In truth, they were more important for being what they were—a compilation of everything that had fueled life in the Old World, when power was generated through the application of science to nature. What the books contained was so valuable, so rich in possibility, that there was no way to measure its potential impact on the Four Lands. But that impact could take any number of forms, some constructive, some destructive. The science that had sustained the Old World would all be recorded in the library. Everything that had advanced that civilization would be set down. But everything that had destroyed it would be set down, as well—the secrets of power with their immense destructive capabilities and the formulas for building weapons that could level entire cities the size of Castledown.

Since he had first understood that, the questions in Walker’s mind had always been the same. How much of that information should be reintroduced into the world? How many of its secrets should be placed back into the hands of the Races? How much of what had led to the destruction of civilization and the reduction of Mankind to the level of animals should he entrust to the descendants of the survivors?

He didn’t know. He supposed it depended on what he found, and so he had struck his bargain with Allardon Elessedil. He would share what he found with the Elves, but only that part that the Elves could make use of or that dealt with magic that was their heritage. He expected that once the books were recovered, nothing in them would offer secrets of magic that would be of any use to the Elves. He did not think they could even read them. To decipher their meaning would take a scholar versed in ancient languages, one who possessed reference books that would facilitate the necessary translations. Only the Druids possessed those—which meant, just then, only him.

But one day, if all went as he hoped, that would change. One day, a Druid Council would again come into being.

As he moved through the myriad chambers and corridors of Castledown in a wide, sweeping search, he mulled his options. There would be too many books for him to carry out. He would have to choose. A handful only, he knew, even with Ryer Ord Star and Ahren Elessedil to help him. Antrax would react too quickly to permit them to take more. He might destroy Antrax; he would at least have to try to render it less of a threat. But if he attacked the keeper, there was a fair chance the library would be lost in the process. Disabling Antrax meant cutting off its power source. Accomplishing that probably meant shutting down whatever systems protected the books, as well. The books would be ancient and fragile, so delicate that any change in their environment might cause them to fall apart. Finding them was one thing; protecting them long enough for them to be of use was another. His magic could help salvage a few, but only a few. He would have to choose. More important, he would have to choose wisely.

He was reminded of a game children played. If you were to be shut away by yourself somewhere and could take with you only a handful of possessions, which ones would you choose? It was much the same choice he faced. Which books of all those available were most important? Which ones would most benefit the world he lived in and the people he sought to help? Which ones would enable the Druids to most ease the pain and suffering of the human condition? Books of healing and cures? Books of agriculture? Books of construction? Books of the Old World’s history? Which?

He did not like having to make the choice. He would have preferred to let someone else make it, had there been someone else. Whatever he decided, whichever books he chose, he would make mistakes. It was inevitable. He could not see the future, and to some extent the future would determine what knowledge was necessary to navigate its uncharted waters. No one could know what would be needed until the time arrived. It was equally possible that what he chose would be misused in some way, causing damage and destruction of the sort he was trying so desperately to avoid.

He needed Ryer Ord Star’s gift of future sight, but only if he could wield it with a craftsman’s skill. It wouldn’t be enough to have glimpses of the future. It wouldn’t help to take events out of context or in a haphazard fashion. A comprehensive look was needed if future sight was to be of any use.

Even then, he admitted, the odds against recognizing what was both important and necessary were enormous. The future was painted on a canvas of infinite reach; it entailed too many connections and joinings. Change one and you changed others. No amount of insight would enable a single individual to decipher it all.

Only the Word could know, and even that was not given to Mankind as truth.

His search went on, the minutes slipping away, time shedding them like leaves at the change of seasons. Though he searched diligently, he could not find the library. He went everywhere in Castledown, through all its vast chambers and down all its long corridors, and still the books eluded him. He was growing tired, and he knew he could not maintain his shade form much longer. Yet he needed to know where the books were kept if he was to reach them once he returned to his body. If he had to search for them once he cut himself loose from Antrax, he was doomed to fail. Antrax would know what had happened, and there would not be enough time to do anything but escape. He must find the books quickly and determine how to reach them.

In the end, he used a simple artifice to solve the problem. He put himself in the minds of the men and women who had built Castledown and created Antrax and asked how they would have gone about warding their treasure. The answer wasn’t so difficult. The books would be housed where the defenses were strongest and most sophisticated, but would cause the least amount of damage should an intruder gain entry. On the surface of Castledown, the defenses were brutal and indiscriminate. Whatever breached them was cut apart. Beneath the surface, where the books were housed, the defenses would be of a different sort. Fire threads and creepers would not be used. Something subtler would be employed.

The Druid changed his way of thinking and began his search anew. As he did so, he was reminded of the strange keys that had lured him to Castledown. He had thought them keys of the sort he was familiar with, metal implements used for unlocking doors. But they had taken a different form than he had expected. Tools of a technological age, they still functioned as keys, but used different principles in doing so. Flat rectangles, they had caused the locks they opened to respond through impulses generated by tiny power cells.

Could it be, he wondered suddenly, that the books had been converted to another form, as well?

A suspicion as cold and deadening as winter night settled through him. He had gotten it all right save for one thing only. He sped through the chambers and corridors, intent on a specific destination, knowing deep inside that his worst fears were about to be realized and that he could do nothing to prevent it. He retraced his route toward the place of his imprisonment, aware of a quickening in Ryer Ord Star’s pulse at his approach, triggered by her mistaken belief that he had succeeded in what he had set out to do and was returning. He blanked out that part of his awareness, making no response to her unspoken inquiry, needing her strength for just a little longer.

When he reached the cavernous chamber just outside the smaller one in which his body lay, he paused. Slowly and carefully, he began sweeping the room with his Druid senses, reaching into the banks of machinery with their spinning silver disks. In silent appraisal, he roamed through the tall metal housings, touching here and there with his mind, listening and deciphering. He could hear voices talking, words being spoken, ideas and recitations being repeated, transferred from one space to another, from a first storage unit to a second. He knew at once that he had found what he was looking for. He knew, as well, that it was useless to have done so.

His disappointment approached despair. There were no books, not of paper and ink. The library existed, but it was a library of the sort that was probably common to its time, that had transcended and replaced the libraries of old. All the knowledge of books had been transcribed onto metal disks and stored in machines. There was no way to make use of it elsewhere without the technology to translate the disks. To decipher what was here, it would be necessary to search the storage units and listen to what was recorded. It would take an enormous amount of time to do that—far more than the Druid could muster.

Even in his shade form, Walker’s reaction to his failure was physical. A visceral pain that was deep and hard and cutting knifed through him. He had come all that way, expending time and energy and lives, only to discover that it was for nothing. The library was useless. The books were disks that might as well be drawings on sand at a shore’s edge. None of the millions of words of knowledge contained in this safehold could be salvaged unless he could find a way to disable Antrax without shutting down the power sources that fueled them both. He had already analyzed the impossibility of accomplishing that. The power sources that enabled both were linked inextricably. He had scanned them in his travels and found them joined in a way that would not permit separation. Antrax was the heart of the safehold and its treasure.

He listened absently to the steady stream of words as they were transferred from one unit to another, a restoring of some sort, a process intended to keep them fresh and new, even with the passage of time, even after nearly three thousand years. It was all there, everything out of the Old World, the whole of its knowledge in one place, his for the taking—yet just out of reach.

His bitterness was palpable. This journey couldn’t have been for nothing. He couldn’t bear that. He wouldn’t tolerate it.

He’d had all the choices in the world—too many to consider—when faced with the possibility that the books of the library could be his; suddenly his choices were reduced to one. He saw it instantly, a single chance, one so extreme that on initial consideration he nearly dismissed it out of hand. Yet it reached out to him, revealing how time and an ironic dovetailing of circumstance and fate sometimes gave birth to the impossible.

A hundred and thirty years ago, when he had gone to Eldwist and recovered the Black Elfstone, when he had made his decision to become the first of the new Druids and thereby bring back lost Paranor, he had encountered a similar choice. No, he corrected abruptly, not a similar choice—the same choice. It was his to make because there was no one else to make it. It was his to make because he alone had the means to do so.

He was reminded anew of Allanon’s words at the Hadeshorn, all those months ago. Of all the things he wished to accomplish on undertaking this journey, the shade had told him, he would be permitted only one.

A sense of irony and amazement filled him. Life was so mysterious and quixotic. It was an infinite maze, but ultimately there was only one right path for each human who sought to navigate its twisting corridors.

He released his grip on the machines and their disks, withdrawing into himself, letting go of all his hopes and expectations save the one he believed he might still realize. Abandoning his shade and resuming habitation of his corporeal form, he swept aside the last fragments of his disappointment and prepared to wake Ryer Ord Star.

Aboveground, at the edge of the maze, the Ilse Witch paused to look about. It was well after midnight, the sky clouded and black, the air thick and warm and smelling of rain. It was so dark in the absence of moon and stars that even with her keen eyesight, she could barely distinguish the buildings and walls of the surrounding ruins. Castledown’s surface felt like a tomb. She had seen nothing move since she entered from the forest. Silence lay over everything in a heavy blanket, masking what she knew to be hiding in wait.

She had been wise not to bring Cree Bega or any of his Mwellrets for support. In that situation, they would be underfoot, a hindrance to her progress. More important, they would pose a threat; she no longer trusted them with her safety, despite the assurances of the Morgawr and their pledge to obey her. She could feel their resentment and anger every time she was in their presence. They hated and feared her. Sooner or later, they would try to eliminate her. It would be necessary for her to eliminate them first, but that was a task she was not yet ready to undertake. Until the Druid and his followers were accounted for and she had possession of the books of magic, she had need of the Mwellrets and their peculiar skills. But she didn’t want them watching her back.

She shifted the weight of the Sword of Shannara where it hung from its strap across her shoulder. She wished she had left it behind, but she had been reluctant to leave it within reach of either the boy or the Mwellrets. She had considered hiding it, but was fearful it might be found. If real, it was a powerful magic, and she wanted it for herself. So she was stuck with hauling it about until the business was finished and she was on her way home. She supposed it was a small price to pay for the uses it might later serve, but she could not get past the resentment at having to endure the ache it caused her shoulders.

Unslinging the sword, she laid it on the ground and stretched her arms over her head. She had not slept for a while, and although sleep was not particularly important to her physical well-being, she felt mentally drained. It was that boy, in part, with his incessant chatter and clever reasoning, trying to persuade her to his cause, trying to trick her. Sparring with him had taken more out of her than she had realized. He was relentless in his insistence of who and what he was, and she found that fighting him off had wearied her.

She yawned. Sleep would give her mind and body rest, but there would be no sleep that night. Instead, she must find a way into Castledown, retrieve the books of magic, and avoid a confrontation with the Druid in the process.

It was a much different mandate than before, she thought ironically, when she had determined to kill Walker. But things had changed, as things had a way of doing.

She picked up the sword and fitted it back across her shoulders, adjusting its weight to gain a measure of comfort. She stood quietly for a time, her gray robes hanging loosely from her slender form, her hood drawn back, her pale face lifted slightly as she concentrated on what lay ahead. Her eyes closed, and she sent the magic of her wishsong into the labyrinth of the ruins. It was there that the Druid had disappeared underground. It was there that the Mwellrets had encountered the creepers. There would be an entrance somewhere close, probably more than one. She need only find it. The rest would be child’s play.

It did not take long to accomplish her goal. There were trapdoors and hidden entryways everywhere, some larger than others, all leading down ramps or steps to the safehold. She used her song to cloak herself in the shape and feel of the maze, cold metal plates and fastenings, wire and machines. Her eyes opened once more. She studied the darkness ahead, then walked in. No creepers or fire threads appeared. She didn’t expect them to. When she used the wishsong in that way, it gave her the feel and appearance of whatever lay around her. Only the magic was detectable, and only by something that could recognize its presence.

She did not take a subtle approach to gaining entry; the longer she took, the more risk she assumed. A safehold built in the Old World would employ technology she did not understand. One safeguard or another would detect her eventually. It was best not to give it a chance to do so.

She placed herself against a wall next to one of the larger hidden doors and used her magic to shatter a smaller port across the way. Almost instantly, the door she stood beside slid open and creepers wheeled into view. She kept herself concealed, letting them move quickly past, then froze the last, holding it in place, breaking down its systems as she swiftly recorded its look and feel, both within and without. It took her only seconds, then she was through the door and inside the keep.

There were lights inside, flameless lamps attached to the walls of a handful of corridors that fanned out from an atrium in which dozens of creepers stood frozen in racks. She held herself motionless for a few seconds, testing her new disguise, waiting to see if there would be a reaction to her presence. There wasn’t. She gave it a few seconds more, then started ahead.

She passed down the corridors of Castledown without incident, long robes rustling softly, her presence wrapped in the look and feel of a creeper. In a place where only machines had functioned for more than twenty-five hundred years, anything of flesh and blood would trigger an alarm instantly. There would be devices that would indicate a human presence either through readings of weight or body heat or even a tracing of form. She had already spied the glass eyes that peered out of their ceiling niches and felt the presence of the pressure plates. The machines would use other methods, as well, but whatever they were, she could thwart them by disguising her look, changing her weight, and hiding her body temperature. Every warning system would register her as a creeper. Even the Druid couldn’t manage that.

Yet she did not allow herself to grow overconfident or drop her guard. There was still the possibility that whatever warded Castledown possessed the ability to track her use of magic, to detect its presence, and to penetrate her subterfuge. If that were to happen, she would have to take evasive action, and quickly. She hoped that her enemy was otherwise occupied, perhaps with Walker. She hoped that the magic she used was too small to detect. She hoped, mainly, that she could accomplish her goals quickly enough that she would be gone before there was a chance to discover that she had ever come in.

She passed dozens of other creepers, all of whom ignored her. Each seemed to have a purpose in mind, but she could not tell what it was. She moved through a maze of chambers and hallways of all shapes and sizes, some empty, some crammed with machinery and materials. She didn’t know what was housed there, and she didn’t care. She was looking for the books of magic and she was not finding them. Nothing else mattered to her. She could not afford the time necessary to undertake a scavenger hunt.

Ahead, the sound of machinery rose out of the silence, a low and steady thrumming. It penetrated even the steel of the walls; it caused the floor beneath her feet to vibrate. She paused, considering. What she was hearing was huge, a piece of machinery or perhaps several pieces that dwarfed anything she had encountered and performed a function central to the operation of the safehold. It was probably a power plant, but it might have something to do with the protection of the books of magic. She should have a look.

She had not taken another ten steps when all the alarms went off at once.

Ryer Ord Star.

Walker felt her stir against him, waking slowly from the trance into which she had gone to provide him with her empathic strength. Her fingers, resting against his temples, slid down his cheeks like tears.

Come awake, young seer.

He was speaking to her with his mind, a silent summoning that only they could hear. He was back within his body, come out of the drugs and dreams, returned from his shadow form, aware once more of his flesh and blood and the condition in which he had been placed. It was time to free himself of the machines and Antrax. But he must do so carefully, and he could not manage it alone.

Listen to me.

She was awake now, her eyes open, her hands bracing her body as she lifted away from him. “Walker?”

Don’t speak. Just listen. Do what I say. Do it quickly. Take the blindfold from my eyes and the breathing tube from my mouth.

She did as she was told, her hands fluttering about his face like small moths. He could feel the expansion and contraction of her lungs as she pressed back against him.

Now release the straps that bind my wrist and ankles, then my neck and forehead and waist. Do it in that order. Do not disturb the wires attached to me. Do not knock them loose.

It took her longer to comply; the straps were fastened with catches of a kind she had never seen and did not understand. They were not formed of metal, but of hard plastic, and she fumbled with them before deciphering their workings. His release went quickly after that as, one by one, the straps fell away.

She was back beside him, leaning close. He opened his eyes for the first time and looked at her. Her wan childlike face, framed by its curtain of silvery hair, broke into a broad smile, and tears filled her eyes. Traces of a cloaking magic still clung to her slender form, but they were fading. How had she gotten to him? Where had she found the magic to do so?

Walker, she mouthed silently.

He scanned himself in an effort to determine what must happen next, trying to decide the right order for the removal of his remaining constraints, knowing that when he released them, alarms would certainly sound.

Block open the door to the room so that when the alarms to the monitoring machines are triggered, Antrax cannot lock us in.

She slipped agilely through the nest of wires still attached to his body, found a low, single-door cabinet on wheels, and rolled it into the opening between the door and the jamb and wedged it securely in place.

Then she was back beside him.

Take the needles from my arm and body. Let them hang loose from their fastenings.

She pulled away the tape that secured the needles, then slipped them from his veins. She touched the punctures with her cool fingers, healing the wounds, providing him with new strength. Her ability to give of her empathic self seemed boundless. She shuddered once at the contact, held her fingers steady for a moment, and then lifted her hands away.

Alarms would be going off; Antrax would know the equipment that drugged and milked him had malfunctioned in some way. He would have to act fast. He sat up on the metal table, finding his strength diminished and his head spinning. The drugs had left him weak and lethargic, but he could still function. He must. He began ripping free the suckers that fastened the monitoring wires to his body. They came away easily, and in seconds none remained but the five that ran to the gloved tips of his fingers. He left those in place. He had a use for them.

Lights were flashing everywhere on the panels of instruments that ringed his bed. He felt a shift in the atmosphere of the chamber as Antrax descended swiftly to correct what had happened. Walker rose unsteadily, the girl supporting him as he gathered his robes and moved away from the table. He walked to where the wires that ran from his fingertips were bunched into a metal plug that, in turn, was fastened into the containers of reddish liquid. He pulled the plug from its sheath and steered it into an identical opening in one of the wall panels marked with brilliant red symbols.

Walker knew what the symbols read. It was the same language in which the map had been lettered, the language from the Old World he had deciphered in the Druid Histories.

He knew, as well, where the lines of the second sheath ran. He had explored them well in his out-of-body travels, tracing them to their source.

Castledown’s main warning system.

Before Antrax could act to prevent it, he sent a burst of Druid fire through the central lines and into all the auxiliaries and set off all the alarms at once.

“Time to be going,” he whispered to himself, wheeling Ryer Ord Star toward the blocked entry.

He had only a few minutes to do what was needed.