The Heritage of Shannara (191 page)

They reached a broad confluence of pipes and slowed behind the Mole's cautious signal. Huddled close at the bottom of a well from which a stone stairway climbed, they held their last council.

“The stairway leads to a cellar within the inner wall,” whispered the Mole. His nose was damp and gleaming. “From there we must climb to a hall, follow it to an entryway that leads outside again, cross to another door, enter, and follow a second hall to a hidden passageway that will take us up through the watchtower to where Damson waits.”

He looked from Padishar to Par and back again, intent.

The big man nodded. “Federation guards?”

The Mole blinked. “Everywhere.”

“Shadowen?”

“In the tower, somewhere.”

Padishar gave Par a wry smile. “Somewhere. Very incisive.” He hunched his big shoulders. “All right. Remember what I said, the both of you. Remember what you are to do—and not to do.” He glanced at Par. “If I fall, you go on—if you can. If not, get to Firerim Reach and find help there. Promise me.”

Par nodded, thinking as he did that the promise was a lie, that he would never turn back, not until Damson was safe, no matter what.

Padishar reached back over his shoulder and tightened the straps that secured the broadsword to his back, then checked the long knives and short sword strapped about his waist. The handle of yet another long knife protruded from one boot. All were carefully sheathed and wrapped in cloth to keep the metal from rattling or reflecting light. Par wore only the Sword of Shannara. The Mole carried no weapons at all.

Padishar looked up again. “All right, then. Let's go in.”

In single file they climbed the stairs, crouching low against the stone, easing their way toward the faint light that shone above. A grate came into view, bars of iron that cast a web of shadows down the steps and onto their bodies. There was silence above, an empty, hollow nothingness.

On reaching the grate, the Mole paused to listen, his head cocked in the manner of an animal at hunt—or at risk—then reached up and with surprising strength lifted the grate away almost soundlessly. Stepping from
the well, he carried the grate overhead as the other two climbed swiftly free, then set it carefully back in place.

They stood in a cellar that was one in a series of interconnected rooms, all in a line that ran away to either side as far as the eye could see. Stores were stacked everywhere, crates of weapons, tools, clothes, and sundry goods, all carefully labeled and piled back against the thick stone walls on wooden pallets. Barrels were housed in an adjoining chamber, and barely visible through the gloom the rusting frames of old beds formed a maze of metal bones. High on the walls, just below the cellar ceiling and just above the ground without, a row of narrow, barred windows let in thin streamers of dusk's fading light.

The Mole took them ahead through the maze of cellar rooms, past the stacks of stores, and around the tangle of crates to where a second set of stairs climbed to a heavy wooden door. They went up the stairs cautiously, and Par felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle with the possibility that unseen eyes watched their every move. He peered left and right, overhead and all about, but saw nothing.

At the door they stopped again while the Mole used a small metal implement to spring the lock. In seconds they were through, moving swiftly into the hallway beyond. They were inside the citadel's inner wall now, the second line of defense to the city and the location of the barracks that housed most of the Federation garrison. The corridor was straight and narrow, and riddled with doors and windows that might give them away to anyone. But no one appeared in the moments it took them to reach the entry the Mole sought, and they were through another door almost before Par had time to take a steadying breath.

Now they stood in a shadowed alcove that looked out across the courtyard that lay between the inner and outer walls of the city. Federation soldiers stood watch at gates and on ramparts, dim shapes in the growing dark. Lights flickered from the windows of the sleeping quarters and guardhouses and off the battlements and gates. Booted feet scraped in the stillness. Voices rose in low murmurs. Somewhere, a whetstone was sharpening metal. Par felt his stomach tighten. The sounds of activity were all about.

They clung to the shadows of the alcove for long minutes, listening and watching, waiting before trying to go on. Par could hear Padishar's breathing as the big man hunched next to him against the wall. His own breathing punctuated the rapid beating of his heart. Stirrings of the wish-song's magic rose out of the depths of his chest, down deep where emotions have their beginnings, and he fought to keep it under control. He found himself thinking again about what would happen when he tried to use the magic. It was there, and he would use it—of that he was certain. But whether it would obey him was another matter entirely, and it occurred to him suddenly that if it should indeed overwhelm him and cause him to become the thing that Rimmer Dall had warned he must be, what was to prevent him from turning on his friends?

Damson, he decided. Damson and what she meant to him would keep the magic in hand.

Then the Mole was moving again, sliding away from the darkened entry along the roughened stone of the great wall. Padishar followed instantly, and Par found himself hurrying to keep up almost before he knew what he was doing. They inched swiftly through the blackness, shying when light from the torches brightened their path in soft pools, trying to blend into the stone, to think of themselves as invisible so that they would in fact become so. Federation soldiers continued to move all about, impossibly loud, uncomfortably close, and each moment it seemed certain to Par that they must be discovered.

But seconds later they were before another door, this one unlocked, and then through it to the light beyond …

A startled Federation soldier stood before them, pike held casually in his hands as he prepared to go out on watch. His mouth gaped open, and for a second he froze. His hesitation cost him his life. Padishar was on him instantly. One hand came up to cover his mouth. The blade of a long knife flashed in the other and then disappeared. Par saw the soldier's eyes widen in surprise. He saw the pain and then the emptiness. The soldier slumped into Padishar's arms like a rag doll. The pike fell away, and the quick hands of the Mole caught it before it could strike the floor. In a hall of stone and old wood lit by fire that flickered at the ends of pitch-coated torches fixed in the mortared walls, the intruders stood breathless and unmoving with the dead soldier clutched between them and listened to the silence.

Then Padishar lifted the body in his arms, carried it back into the shadows of a niche, and shoved it from view. Par watched it happen as if from a great distance, removed somehow from the event, as cold as the stone about him. He tried not to look. He could still hear the sound the soldier made when he died. He could still see the look in his eyes.

They went down the passageway swiftly, wary of other soldiers who might appear, listening for the silence to be disturbed. But they met no one else, and almost before Par realized it they were through a small, ironbound door that was barely visible even from within the shadowed niche in which it was set.

The door closed behind them, and they stood in a blackness as complete as moonless night. Par could smell wood and dust and feel the roughness of boards beneath his feet. There was a moment's pause as the Mole rummaged about. Then a flint struck—once, twice—and a candle's thin flame cast its small glow. They were in a closet of some sort, barely six feet square, crammed with odd supplies and debris. The Mole moved things carefully aside, freeing a space at the back of the cubicle, and then pushed against the wall. A section of it that had been invisible to the naked eye came away in the form of a small door swinging inward.

Quickly they moved through. A narrow space opened between walls of stone and wood shoring, so low-ceilinged that Padishar was forced to crouch to avoid bumping his head. One big hand came up guardedly. Par
saw blood on the hand and felt suddenly the nearness of his own death, as if it were something the dead soldier's eyes had foretold.

The Mole slid past him and began to lead them down through the walls, edging past stone projections, iron nails, and jagged wood splinters. Cobwebs brushed at their faces and small rodents ran squeaking through the dark ahead. The candle's flame was a dim glow against the black.

They began to climb, finding rungs hammered into the shoring and steps cut in the rock, a mix of ladders and ramps that wound up through the walls. They were in the tower now, working their way toward its apex and Damson's prison. From time to time they would hear voices, muffled and faint. It grew steadily warmer and more airless, and Par began to sweat. Their passageway became smaller and more difficult to navigate, and Padishar was having trouble squeezing through.

Then abruptly the Mole stopped, frozen in place. The leader of the free-born and the Valeman went still as well, crouched in the near blackness, listening. There was only the silence to be heard, but Par sensed something nevertheless—the feel of something alive and moving, just through the walls, just on the other side. Within him, the magic of the wishsong stirred like a hungry cat, and its fire purred anxiously. Par closed his eyes and concentrated on muting its sound.

What he sensed beyond the wall was one of the Shadowen.

He felt his breath catch in his throat as an image formed in his mind of the black thing, a vision brought to life by his magic. It stole along a corridor within the tower, hooded and cloaked, fingers testing the air like tentacles in search of prey. Could it sense them as well? Did it know they were there? The magic rustled like a snake inside Par Ohmsford, coiling, tensing, gathering force. Par muffled it and would not let go. Too soon! It was too soon!

The air whispered in his ear as if it were alive. He gritted his teeth and held on.

Then the Shadowen was gone, fading like a momentary thought, dark and evil and full of hate. The wishsong's magic cooled, easing down once again. Par felt some of the tautness let go, and the muscles in his chest and stomach relaxed. He was aware of Padishar looking at him, of the uneasiness mirrored on the other's face. Padishar reached back to grip his shoulder questioningly. Par felt the iron in the other's fingers, and stole some of its strength. He managed a quick, reassuring nod.

They continued on, climbing still, edging ahead through the gloom. Everywhere it was still, the small sounds of Federation voices and boots gone completely. The night was a blanket of silence in which every living thing seemed to have drifted off to sleep. Deceptive, Par thought as he labored on. Dangerous.

A moment later they stopped again, this time at a stretch of mortared stone wall framed by heavy timbers that buttressed one end of a floor overhead. The Mole handed the candle to Padishar and began to explore the
stone with his fingers. Something clicked beneath his careful touch, and a section of the wall gave way. A seam of light appeared, faint and smoky.

The Mole turned back to Padishar. His voice was hushed. “They keep her one flight down through the second door somewhere.” He hesitated. “I could show you.”

“No,” Padishar said at once. “Wait here. Wait for us to come back.”

The Mole studied him a moment and then nodded reluctantly. “Second door,” he repeated.

With both hands braced against it, he pushed the portal in the wall all the way open. Padishar and Par Ohmsford stepped cautiously through.

They stood on a landing in a stairwell where the steps both climbed and descended. A door across from them was closed and barred, the metal thick with rust. Torches rested in iron brackets hammered into the stone, their glow tracing the line of the worn steps, their acrid smoke rising into the tower's gloom.

Everything was silent.

Behind them, the hidden door swung closed again.

Par glanced at Padishar. The big man was looking about guardedly. There was renewed uneasiness in his eyes. He shook his head at something unseen.

They began the descent, backs against the wall, ears straining to catch any threatening sounds. The stairs curled in serpentine fashion along the wall, the patches of torchlight just barely meeting at the turns. A hint of night sky was visible now and again through the slits in the stone, high and beyond reach from where they passed. Par's stomach was churning. He thought he heard something on the steps above, a small scraping of boots, a rustle of clothing. He blinked and wiped the sweat from his face. There was only silence.

They reached the next landing. There was a single door, unguarded, unlocked. They opened it and passed through easily. Par didn't like it. If this was where Damson was being kept, there should have been guards. He glanced again at Padishar, but the big man was looking ahead, down a dimly lit corridor that ran to the promised second door. They moved to it swiftly, and as they did Par felt the magic of the wishsong again stir suddenly to life. He gasped at the swiftness of its coming, almost doubling over with the heat it generated, like a furnace door being opened.

Something was wrong.

He grasped Padishar's arm. The big man turned, startled. Par jerked about, sensing movement behind, a dark presence … The Shadowen! They were—

And the door behind them flew open with a crash. Three black-cloaked Seekers surged through, Shadowen forms hunched and twisted within the concealing garb, weapons glinting in the torchlight. Padishar's broadsword scraped free of its scabbard. Par reached back for the Sword of Shannara, then jerked his hands away as if from live coals. He would be burned if he touched it! Burned, he knew!

“Padishar!” he gasped.

The big man wheeled toward the door behind them, but it, too, swung wide, and two more of the black-cloaked monsters appeared. Both ends of the corridor were blocked now, and Par Ohmsford and Padishar Creel were trapped.

“The Mole!” Padishar swore, certain they had been betrayed.

But Par did not hear him. The Seekers rushed to seize them, and the magic of the wishsong exploded in the sound of his warning cry, filling the tower with fury. It enveloped him like a whirlwind, pressing him back against an astonished Padishar. He fought to contain it, but it overpowered him effortlessly. Then it broke away in shards of white-hot fire that flew at the Shadowen. The black figures threw up their arms, but the wishsong's magic tore through them and they were turned to ash. Par screamed, unable to help himself, and the wishsong broke through the walls like a flood through a dam, shattering mortared seams and blowing holes through the stone. Padishar flinched away, then grabbed at Par in desperation and hauled him bodily through the second door, slamming it shut behind them.