Bloodfire Quest (The Dark Legacy of Shannara, #2)(89)
“I know that. I never thought you would.”
She smiled at him. She was so pretty, he thought. He wanted to tell her so. He wanted to lean over and kiss her. But they were standing out on the open deck with people all around them, and he couldn’t make himself do it. He loved her, but he wasn’t sure enough of himself to risk finding out that she didn’t love him in return. At least, not in that way.
He stared off into the distance. If he were Austrum, he wouldn’t have hesitated. He would have just done it.
But instead he made up an excuse about needing to talk to Woostra and left her there alone. Conflicting thoughts jumbled together in his head. How can I even be thinking about Mirai like that when Redden’s life is at stake? How can I be so selfish? Why didn’t I go ahead and kiss her? She wouldn’t have minded. She didn’t mind Austrum doing it. But it doesn’t matter about Austrum. What matters is Redden, and I can’t let myself think about anything else.
He raved on for a few moments more and then angrily swept everything aside and went down into the hold to sleep.
He was awake again when they reached the Dragon’s Teeth, and then all the way through the peaks and across the Forbidden Forest to the spires of Paranor. By then the day was easing toward sunset, and the sky to the east was darkening. Woostra had them set down in the same clearing where he had landed with the Elessedil sisters and Cymrian weeks ago when returning to discover information about the Bloodfire.
Then, leaving the others to keep watch, the Druid scribe departed with Railing for the tunnels that led into the Keep.
It took them little time to find the hidden entrance and make the underground journey into the fortress. Torches helped them navigate their way through the darkness, and no obstacles appeared to hinder their progress. Although Woostra proceeded with no apparent concern for what might be lying in wait, Railing couldn’t help listening for noises and searching for movement. He couldn’t seem to help himself, even though he knew that if anything were hiding in these tunnels, it would be on them before he could do anything about it.
But nothing happened, and once inside the walls of the Keep and aboveground, Woostra started directly for the tower where the Druid Histories and accompanying papers were concealed and where Khyber kept her sleeping chamber. Evidence of the Federation’s attack on the Keep had not been removed. Debris from broken walls and parapets still littered the courtyards through which they passed, and damage from fire launchers and rail slings still scarred the buildings surrounding them. Bodies lay everywhere, picked apart by birds of prey and other scavengers. The Keep itself was silent and devoid of life, and it was clear that the Federation had made no further attempt to occupy it.
“Guess the scavengers decided they could feast on the dead after all,” Woostra muttered. He glanced over. “Stay close to me. Don’t wander off.”
Fat chance of that, the boy thought. The heaped bodies and the extent of the carnage inflicted by whatever magic warded the Keep unnerved him. In the best of times, Paranor would be an intimidating place—cold and cavernous and filled with strange sounds. But turned into a charnal house, it was terrifying. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and as they passed down the lifeless corridors he could feel cold spots that froze his blood.
“Why isn’t the Federation army anywhere about if the magic’s gone back to wherever it came from?” he whispered.
Woostra glanced over. “They don’t know that Aphen has locked the magic away again. And they have no way of knowing what’s here without coming back inside the walls. They’re not about to do that after what happened to their fellows.” He paused. “Besides, Drust Chazhul is dead. Without his insistence on pursuing the attack, they’ve retreated to Arishaig. Edinja Orle will have a different take on things.”
Railing listened to the silence, unbroken save for the sound of their footsteps as they climbed flights of stairs and traveled down empty, echoing passageways crisscrossing the building. Rooms came and went, all of them deserted. Paranor felt as if it had been abandoned for centuries and not weeks. He tried to imagine what it would be like to live here, to be a Druid in residence, and he could not do so. It felt too closed away, too claustrophobic. He was a creature of open air and sunlight, and walls felt unnatural and unfriendly. He thought of his great-aunt living here, of her days as Ard Rhys, but any image he could form was incomplete and tinged with what he knew of her dark life, and it felt forced and unreal.
“Here,” Woostra said, many floors and passageways later, standing at a set of heavy doors that were closed and locked. “We begin our search in these rooms.”
He manipulated the locks, and the doors opened to admit them. Together they entered the first of what Railing could see was a series of rooms with wall-to-wall bookshelves and cabinets and floor space crammed with worktables and desks. He looked around in dismay. How in the world would they ever find anything in this jumbled mess?
“We’ll begin here,” Woostra announced. “We won’t need to look through the Histories themselves; I’m familiar with what they contain, especially regarding recent times. There’s nothing in them that will help.” He saw the look on the boy’s face. “Don’t worry. I know where to search for what we need.”
So search they did, through notebooks and journals, through stacks of letters, files thick with official Druid documents and piles of odd notes and scraps of paper with cryptic comments. They did not find Grianne Ohmsford’s private diary as they had hoped to. They found, in fact, exactly nothing that would help explain what had become of Grianne after she left Paranor.