The Druid of Shannara

He turned back to the old Tracker. “I’ve wasted enough time on you,” he snapped. “Go back to the others. I don’t need your help.”


Horner Dees shrugged. “I wasn’t offering it.”

Pe Ell started for the door.

“Just out of curiosity,” Dees called after him, rising now as well, “how do you plan to kill it?”

“What difference does it make to you?” Pe Ell called over his shoulder.

“You don’t have a plan, do you?”

Pe Ell stopped dead in the doorway, seized by an almost overpowering urge to finish off the troublesome Dees here and now. After all, why wait any longer? The others would never know. His hand dropped through the crease in his pants to close about the Stiehl.

“Thing is,” Horner Dees said suddenly, “Yours truly, can’t kill the Rake even if you manage to get close enough to use that blade of yours.”

Pe Ell’s fingers released. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that even if you lay in wait for the thing, say you drop on it from above or sneak up on it from underneath—not likely, but say that you do—you still can’t kill it quick enough.” The sharp eyes glittered. “Oh, you can cut off a tentacle or two, maybe sever a leg, or even put out an eye. But that won’t kill it. Where do you stab it that will kill it, Pe Ell? Do you know? I don’t. Before you’ve taken two cuts, the Rake will have you. Damage the thing? A Creeper builds itself right back again, finds spare pieces of metal and puts what it’s lost back in place.”

Pe Ell smiled—mean, sardonic, empty of warmth. “I’ll find a way.”

Dees nodded. “Sure you will.” He paused deliberately, his bearish frame shifting, changing his weight from one foot to the other. In the near darkness, he seemed like a piece of the wall breaking loose. “But not without a plan.”

Pe Ell looked away in disgust, shook his head, then looked back again. He’d spent too much time trudging about this dismal city, this tomb of stone and damp. He’d been fighting too long to keep from being swallowed up in its belly. That coupled with prolonged exposure to Quickening’s magic had eroded his instincts, dulled the edge of his sharpness, and twisted the clearness of his thought. He was at a point where the only thing that mattered was getting back to where he had started from, to the world beyond Eldwist, and to the life that he had so fully controlled.

But not without the Black Elfstone. He would not give it up.

And not without Quickening’s life. He would not give that up either.

Meanwhile, Horner Dees was trying to tell him something. It never hurt to listen. He made himself go very still inside—everything, right down to his thoughts. “You have a plan of your own, don’t you?” he whispered.

“I might.”

“I’m listening.”

“Maybe there’s something to what you say about killing the Rake. Maybe that will bring Belk out of hiding. Something has to be tried.” The admission came grudgingly.

“I’m still listening.”

“It’ll take the two of us. Same agreement as before. We look out for each other until the matter’s done. Then it’s every man for himself. Your word.”

“You have it.”

Horner Dees shuffled forward until he was right in front of Pe Ell, much closer than Pe Ell wanted him, wheezing like he’d run a mile, grinning through his shaggy beard, big hands knotting into fists.

“What I think we ought to do,” he said softly, “is drop the Rake down a deep hole.”

Morgan Leah stared at Walker Boh wordlessly for a moment, then shook his head. He was surprised at how calm his voice sounded. “It won’t work. You said yourself that the Stone King isn’t just a moving statue; he’s made himself a part of the land. He’s everything in Eldwist. You saw what he did when he finally decided to let us into the dome and then after, when he summoned the Maw Grint. He just split the rock wall apart. His own skin, Walker. Don’t you think he’ll know if we try to climb through that same skin from beneath? Don’t you think he’ll be able to feel it? What do you think will happen to us then? Squish!”

Morgan made a grinding motion with his palms. A dark flush crept into his face; he found that he was shaking.

Walker’s expression never changed. “What you suggest is possible, but unlikely. Uhl Belk may be the heart and soul of the land he has created, but he is also, like it, a thing of stone. Stone feels nothing, senses nothing. Uhl Belk would not have even discovered we were here if he had been forced to rely on his external senses. It was our use of magic that alerted him. There may remain enough of him that is human to detect intruders, but he relies principally on the Rake. If we can avoid using magic we can enter the dome before he knows what we are about.”