No more!
He screamed the words, wrenching at them like rooted things from the music of his song, and the images fell away. He plummeted downward, racing on the slick surface of the wishsong’s cry. He had to reach Brin!
Below, the tangle of the Maelmord lifted toward him. He could see its dark mass rising and falling like a thing alive and could hear the sound of its breathing, a loathsome hiss. Mountain walls swept past him as he fell, and he watched the jungle stretch out its arms to gather him in. Panic filled him. Then he plunged into the Maelmord; its gaping maw closed about him, the stench and the mist enveloped him, and everything disappeared.
Jair came back to himself slowly. Darkness lay across his vision like a shroud, and his head spun. He blinked, and the light returned. He was no longer falling through the vortex of the wishsong’s music or plummeting downward into the tangled dark of the Maelmord. His journey was finished. The stone walls of the tower he had sought to reach surrounded him, aged and crumbling. He stood within them, a part of the vision that the waters of the basin of Heaven«s Well had shown him.
«Brin!» he whispered harshly.
A figure turned, ringed in shadows and graying half–light, slight hands clasping firmly a massive, metalbound book.
Brin was a distortion of the woman she had once been, her features twisted almost beyond recognition. All of the exquisite beauty and vibrancy of form had hardened into something that might have been carved from stone. She was an apparition, her color drained away and her slight form skeletal and hunched down against the dark. Horror flooded through Jair. What had been done to her?
«Brin?» he called again, his voice faltering.
Wrapped in the frightening power of the Ildatch magic as it rushed to mix with her own, Brin was barely aware of the solitary figure who stood at the far side of the tower room. He called to her — a soft, familiar call. She fought back for an instant, through the layers of magic that wove about her to the reason that had fled deep within her, and memory returned. Jair! Ah, shades — it was Jair!
But the dark magic tightened again, stealing her back. The power surged through her, washing away all recognition of who it was she faced, bringing her back to the creature she had made herself become. Doubt and suspicion twisted through her, and the empty voice of the Ildatch whispered in warning.
— He is evil, dark child. A deception given life by the Wraiths. Keep him from you. Destroy him —
No, it is Jair… somehow he has come… Jair…
— He would steal the power that is ours. He would make us die —
No, Jair… has come…
— Destroy him, dark child. Destroy him —
She could not seem to help herself. Her resistance crumbled, and her voice lifted in a frightening wail. But Jair had seen the sudden look of hatred in his sister’s eyes, and he was already moving. He sang, his own magic shielding him as he slipped from himself and left behind an image. Even so, he barely escaped her. The explosion of sound that broke from Brin’s throat disintegrated the image and the wall behind it instantly and caught him up in the aftershock, throwing him like an empty sack to the stone floor. Dust and silt swirled through the halflight, and the ancient tower rocked with the force of the attack.
Slowly, Jair crawled back to his knees, crouching down within the screen of debris that hung on the air. For an instant, his certainty that he had used the third magic wisely wavered. It had seemed so clear to him when he had first seen Brin in the waters of Heaven’s Well. He had known that he must go to her. But now that he had reached her, what was he to do? As the King of the Silver River had foretold, she was lost to herself. She had become something unrecognizable, subverted by the dark magic of the Ildatch. But it was more than that, for not only had she changed, but the magic of her wishsong had also changed. It had become a thing of awesome power, a weapon she would use against him, not knowing who he was, not remembering him at all. How was he to help her when she meant to destroy him?
A moment’s time was all that he had to consider the dilemma. He came back to his feet. Allanon might have had the strength to withstand such power. Rone might have had the quickness to elude it. The little company from Culhaven might have had the numbers to overwhelm it. But they were all gone. All those who might have stood by him were no more. Whatever help he was to find, he must find within himself.
He slipped quickly through the screen of smoke and silt. He knew that if he were to be of any use to Brin, he must first find a way to separate her from the Ildatch.
The air cleared before him, and Brin’s shadowy figure appeared a dozen yards away. Instantly he sang, the wishsong a sharp humming sound in the stillness, carrying in its music a whispered plea. Brin, it called. The book is too heavy, its weight too great. Release it, Brin. Let it fall!
For a brief second, Brin’s hands came down, her head lowering in doubt. It appeared the illusion would work and that she would release the Ildatch. Then a fury swept across her gaunt face, and the cry of her wishsong shattered the air into fragments of sound, breaking apart Jair’s plea.
The Valeman stumbled back. He tried again, this time with an illusion of fire, a hiss that scattered flames all about the binding of the ancient tome. Brin screamed, an animal–like cry, but then clasped the book to her as if she might smother the fire against her own body. Her head twisted about, her eyes darting. She was looking for him. She meant to find him and use the magic against him, to see him destroyed.
His song changed again, this time creating an illusion of smoke that billowed in clouds through the chamber. But she would be fooled for only a few moments. He dodged back about the walls of the tower, trying to come at her from a different direction. He sang again, this time sending to her a whisper of darkness, deep and impenetrable. He must be quicker than she was. He must keep her off balance.
He sped about the tower’s shadows like a ghost, striking out at Brin with every trick he knew — with heat and cold, with dark and light, with pain, and with anger. Twice she lashed out blindly at him with her own magic, a searing burst of power that threw him from his feet and left him shaken. She seemed confused, somehow uncertain — as if unable to decide whether or not to use the whole of the power that she had summoned. But even so, she kept the Ildatch clasped tight against her, whispering to it soundlessly, grasping it as if it were her life–source. Nothing that Jair tried would make her release the book.
It is no game that he was playing now, he thought darkly, remembering Slanter’s scathing rebuke.
He was beginning to tire rapidly. Weakened by his battle to gain Heaven’s Well, by his wound, and by the strain of his prolonged use of the wishsong, he was becoming exhausted. He did not have the power of the dark magic to sustain him as did Brin; he had only his own determination. It was not enough, he feared. He slipped back and forth through the gloom and the shadows, searching for a way to break through his sister’s defenses. His breathing was labored and uneven; his strength was ebbing away.
In desperation; he used the wishsong as he had used it at Culhaven before the Dwarf Council of Elders to create a vision of Allanon. From the haze that lay over the battered chamber, he brought forth the Druid, dark and commanding, one arm stretched forth. Release the book of Ildatch, Brin Ohmsford! the deep voice admonished. Let it fall!