He heard something then, a sound that came from somewhere far below, a sound so soft that he detected it with his instincts rather than his ears. He hastened from the room, sensing that whatever time had been allotted him in Paranor was running out. He must find the Eilt Druin now. Locating the medallion was all that was left. Athabasca had not been wearing it. It might have been taken from his body, but Bremen did not think so. The attack had come at night, Caerid Lock had said, and no one had been ready.
Athabasca would have been roused from his bed. He would not have taken time to put on the medallion. It was probably in his chambers.
Bremen climbed the stairs to the High Druid’s office, a soundless, voiceless ghost among the dead. He felt as if he had no weight, no substance, no presence. He was inconsequential, a madman playing with fire and having no cure for the burns it was sure to inflict. He felt tired, lost to his fears for the world. It was such a hopeless task he had set himself—creating a magic, forging a talisman to contain it, finding a champion to wield it.
What chance did he have to accomplish all this? What hope?
He found the door to Athabasca’s rooms open and entered cautiously. He scanned the shelves and desktop without result. He opened doors to cabinets and files and found nothing. Fearful now that he had come too late even for the medallion, he hastened into the High Druid’s bedchamber.
There, sprawled on a night table, forgotten in the rush that had carried Athabasca from his sleep to his death, was the Eilt Druin.
Bremen picked it up and examined it, making sure it was real.
The burnished metal glimmered back at him. He ran his fingers over the raised surface of hand and burning torch. Then he tucked it quickly into his robes and hurried from the room.
He went down the corridors and stairs once more, still listening and watching, still wary. He had gotten this far without encountering anything. Perhaps he could slip past whatever had been set at watch. Cloud silent, he eased through the gloom and the dead, past shadows pooling in narrow comers and bodies flung through doorways and across stone floors. He caught sight suddenly of a faint brightening in the sky east, visible through tall, latticed glass windows. Night was fading, the dawn at hand. Bremen breathed deeply of the musty, stale air, and longed for the smell and taste of the green forest beyond.
He reached the main stairway and started down. He was midway between floors when he caught sight of movement on the broad landing below. He slowed, stopped, and waited. The movement detached itself from the shadows, a new kind of shadow, a different form. The thing that showed itself was human, but only vaguely. Arms, legs, torso, and head, all were covered in thick black hair, bristling and stiff, all crooked and bent like bramble wood, elongated and misshapen. There were claws and teeth that glimmered like the jagged ends of old bones, and eyes that flickered with bits of crimson and green. The thing whispered to him, called out to him, begged and wheedled with a wretchedness that was palpable.
Breeemen, Breeemen, Breeemen.
The old man glanced quickly to the upper landing, also visible within the wide, open stairwell, and another of the creatures appeared, a mirror image of the first, creeping from the gloom.
Breeemen, Breeemen, Breeemen.
Both came onto the stairs, one ascending, one descending. They had trapped him between them. There were no doors leading off, there was no way to go but up or down, past one or the other. They had waited him out, he realized. They had let him go about his business, let him collect what he chose, then closed in on him. The Warlock Lord had planned it thus, wanting to know what was important enough to bring him back, what treasure, what bit of magic could be precious enough to salvage. Find out, the Warlock Lord had ordered, then steal it from his lifeless body and bring it to me.
Bremen looked from one to the other. Druids once, these creatures, now altered into unspeakable things. Ravers, berserkers, beings stripped of their humanity and made over so that they might serve one last purpose. It was difficult to feel sorrow for them. They had been human enough when they had betrayed the Keep and its occupants. They had been free enough to choose then.
But there were supposed to be three, he realized suddenly.
Where was the third?
Warned by a sixth sense, by instincts honed to a fine edge, he looked up just as it dropped from its hiding place in a stone niche in the stairwell wall. He flung himself aside, and it thudded to the stairs with a snapping of broken bones. Still, it didn’t quit. It rose in a flurry of teeth and claws, shrieking and spitting, and launched itself at him. Bremen acted instinctively, throwing up the Druid fire that served as his defense in a blue curtain that engulfed the creature. Even then, it did not stop. It came on, burning, the black hair of its body flaring like a torch, the skin beneath peeling and melting away. Bremen struck at it again, frightened now, amazed that it could still stand. The thing careered into him, and he twisted away, falling back upon the stairs, kicking out in desperation.
Then, at last, the creature’s strength failed. It lost its footing and tumbled away, rolling to the edge of the stairwell and dropping from view, a bright flare in the inky black.
Bremen lurched to his feet, singed by flames and raked by the creature’s claws. The other two attackers continued their approach with slow, mincing steps, like cats at play. Bremen tried to call up his magic in defense, but he had exhausted himself defending against the first attack. Startled by its ferocity, he had used too much of his strength. Now he had almost nothing left.
The creatures seemed to know this. They eased smoothly toward him, mewling anxiously.
Bremen put his back to the stairwell wall and watched them come.
As he did so, Kinson and Mareth crept silently through the corridors of the Keep, searching for him. The dead lay everywhere, but there was no sign of the old man. Though they watched and listened for his passing, they could detect nothing. Kinson was growing worried. If there was something evil hidden within the Keep, waiting for intruders, it might find them first. It might find them before they found Bremen, and Bremen would be forced to come to their rescue. Or had the Druid already fallen victim without their hearing? Were they already too late He should never have let Bremen go on alone!
They passed through the bodies of the Druid Guard who had made their last stand at the top of the stairs on the Keep’s second level, and continued up. Still nothing showed itself. The stairs wound upward into the black, endless in number. Mareth was pressed against the wall, trying to get a better look at what lay ahead. Kinson kept glancing behind them, thinking an attack would come from there. His face and hands were slippery with sweat.
Where was Bremen?
Then something stirred on the next landing up, a faint altering of light, a detaching of shadows. Kinson and Mareth froze. An odd whispery wail drifted down to where they stood.
Breeemen, Breeemen, Breeemen.
They glanced at each other, then cautiously eased ahead.
Something dropped onto the stairs above them, a heavy body, too far away yet to see, but close enough to imagine. Blue fire exploded through the darkness. Shrieks rang out, and bodies thudded. Seconds later, a flaming ball hurtled over the edge of the stairs and fell past them, a living thing, if only barely, thrashing in agony as it crashed to the floor below.
Caution forgotten, Mareth and Kinson charged ahead. As they climbed, they caught sight of Bremen higher up on the stairs, trapped between two hideous creatures that were advancing on him from the landings above and below. The old man was bloodied and burned and clearly exhausted. Druid fire flared at his fingertips, but would not ignite. The creatures who stalked him were taking their time.