The Druid of Shannara

The Urdas faded into a patch of fog and were lost from view. Carisman wheeled on his companions, stricken. “If they are not stopped, they will all be killed!”


“The Urdas are no longer your responsibility, Carisman,” Walker Boh declared softly. “You are no longer their king.”

Carisman looked unconvinced. “They are children, Walker! They have no understanding of what lives down here. The Rake or the Maw Grint, either one will destroy them. I can’t imagine how they slipped past the Koden …”

“In the same way as Horner Dees did ten years ago,” Walker cut him short. “With a sacrifice of lives. And still they come ahead. They are not as worried about themselves, it appears, as you are.”

Carisman wheeled on Quickening. “Lady, you’ve seen the way they react to things. What do they know of the Stone King and his magic? If they are not stopped …”

Quickening seized his arms and held them. “No, Carisman. Walker Boh is right. The Urdas are dangerous to you now as well.”

But Carisman shook his head vehemently. “No, Lady. Never to me. They were my family before I abandoned them.”

“They were your captors!”

“They cared for me and protected me in the only way they knew how. Lady, what am I to do? They have come here to find me! Why else would they be taking such a risk? I think they have never come so far away from home. They are here because they think you stole me away. Can I abandon them a second time, this time to die for a mistake that I can prevent them from making?” Carisman pulled free, slowly, gently. “I have to go to them. I have to warn them.”

“Carisman …”

The tunesmith was already backing toward the belltower stairs. “I have been an orphan of the storm all of my life, blown from one island to the next, never with family or home, always in search of somewhere to belong and someone to belong to. The Urdas gave me what I have of both, little as it may seem to you. I cannot let them die needlessly.”

He turned and started quickly down the stairs. Quickening and Walker exchanged wordless glances and hurried after.

They caught up with him on the street below. “We’ll come with you then,” Walker said.

Carisman whirled about at once. “No, no, Walker! You cannot show yourselves to them! If you do, they might think I am threatened by you—perhaps even that I am a prisoner! They might attack, and you could be hurt! No. Let me deal with them. I know them; I can talk with them, explain what has happened, and turn them back before it is too late.” His handsome features crinkled with worry. “Please, Walker? Lady?”

There was nothing more to be said. Carisman had made up his mind and would not allow them to change it. As a final concession they demanded that they be allowed to accompany him at least as far as was reasonable to assure that they would be close at hand in case of trouble. Carisman was reluctant to agree even to that much, concerned that he was taking them away from work that was more important, that he was delaying their search for the Stone King. Both Quickening and Walker refused to argue the point. They walked in silence, single file along the walkways, down the tunneled streets, traveling south through the city. He would meet the Urdas at the city’s south edge, Carisman told them, sweeping back his blond hair, squaring himself for his encounter. Walker found him odd and heroic at once, a strange parody of a man aspiring to reality yet unable quite to grasp it. Give thought to what you are doing, he begged the tunesmith at one point. But Carisman’s answering smile was cheerfully beguiling and filled with certainty. He had done all the thinking he cared to do.

When they neared the boundaries of the city, the rocky flats of the isthmus peeking through the gaps in the buildings, Carisman brought them to a halt.

“Wait for me here,” he told them firmly. Then he made them promise not to follow after him. “Do not show yourselves; it will only frighten the Urdas. Give me a little time. I am certain I can make them understand. As I said, my friends—they are like children.”

He clasped their hands in farewell and walked on. He turned at one point to make certain they were doing as he had asked, then waved back to them. His handsome face was smiling and assured. They watched the mist curl about him, gather him up, and finally cause him to disappear.

Walker glanced at the buildings surrounding them, chose a suitable one, and steered Quickening toward it. They entered, climbed the stairs to the top floor, and found a room where a bank of windows gaped open to the south. From there they could watch the Urdas approach. The gnarled figures were strung out along the isthmus, making their way cautiously past the crevices and ruts. There were perhaps twenty of them, several obviously injured.

They watched until the Urdas reached the edge of the city and disappeared into the shadow of the buildings.