The Druid of Shannara

“Not a mark on him,” Horner Dees muttered, his rough face creased further by the frown that bent his mouth, his voice wondering. He moved forward, bent down to take a close look, then straightened. “Neck might be broke. Ribs crushed. Something like that. But nothing that I can see. A little blood on his hands, but that belongs to the girl. And look. Koden tracks all around, everywhere. It had to have caught him. Yet there’s not a mark on his body. How do you like that?”


There was no sign of the Koden. It was gone, disappeared as if it had never been. Walker tested the air, probed the silence, closed his eyes to see if he could find the Koden in his mind. No. Quickening’s magic had set it free. As soon as the chains that bound it were broken, it had gone back into its old world, become itself again, a bear only, the memories of what had been done to it already fading. Walker felt a deep sense of satisfaction settle through him. He had managed to keep his promise after all.

“Look at his eyes, will you?” Horner Dees was saying. “Look at the fear in them. He didn’t die a happy man, whatever it was that killed him. He died scared.”

“It must have been the Koden,” Morgan Leah insisted. He hung back from the body, unwilling to approach it.

Dees glanced pointedly at him. “You think so? How, then? What did it do, hug him to death? Must have done it pretty quick if it did. That knife of his isn’t even out of its case. Take a look, Highlander. What do you see?”

Morgan stepped up hesitantly and stared down. “Nothing,” he admitted.

“Just as I said.” Dees sniffed. “You want me to turn him over, look there?”

Morgan shook his head. “No.” He studied Pe Ell’s face a moment without speaking. “It doesn’t matter.” Then his eyes lifted to find Walker’s. “I don’t know what to feel. Isn’t that odd? I wanted him dead, but I wanted to be the one who killed him. I know it doesn’t matter who did it or how it happened, but I feel cheated somehow. As if the chance to even things up had been taken away from me.”

“I don’t think that’s the case, Morgan,” the Dark Uncle replied softly. “I don’t think the chance was ever yours in the first place.”

The Highlander and the old Tracker stared at him in surprise. “What are you saying?” Dees snapped.

Walker shrugged. “If I were the King of the Silver River and it was necessary for me to sacrifice the life of my child to an assassin’s blade, I would make certain her killer did not escape.” He shifted his gaze from one face to the other and back again. “Perhaps the magic that Quickening carried in her body was meant to serve more than one purpose. Perhaps it did.”

There was a long silence as the three contemplated the prospect. “The blood on his hands, you think?” Homer Dees said finally. “Like a poison?” He shook his head. “Makes as much sense as anything else.”

Walker Boh reached down and carefully freed the bag with the Black Elfstone from Pe Ell’s rigid fingers. He wiped it clean, then held it in his open palm for a moment, thinking to himself how ironic it was that the Elfstone would have been useless to the assassin. So much effort expended to gain possession of its magic and all for nothing. Quickening had known. The King of the Silver River had known. If Pe Ell had known as well, he would have killed the girl instantly and been done with the matter. Or would he have remained anyway, so captivated by her that even then he would not have been able to escape? Walker Boh wondered.

“What about this?” Horner Dees reached down and unstrapped the Stiehl from around Pe Ell’s thigh. “What do we do with it?”

“Throw it into the ocean,” Morgan said at once. “Or drop it into the deepest hole you can find.”

It seemed to Walker that he could hear someone else speaking, that the words were unpleasantly familiar ones. Then he realized he was thinking of himself, remembering what he had said when Cogline had brought him the Druid History out of lost Paranor. Another time, another magic, he thought, but the dangers were always the same.

“Morgan,” he said, and the other turned. “If we throw it away, we risk the possibility that it will be found again—perhaps by someone as twisted and evil as Pe Ell. Perhaps by someone worse. The blade needs to be locked away where no one can ever reach it again.” He turned to Horner Dees. “If you give it to me, I will see that it is.”

They stood there for a moment without moving, three worn and ragged figures in a field of broken stone and new green, measuring one another. Dees glanced once at Morgan, then handed the blade to Walker. “I guess we can trust you to keep your word as well as anyone,” he offered.

Walker shoved the Stiehl and the Elfstone into the deep pockets of his cloak and hoped it was so.