The Druid of Shannara

As he passed the ruins of the cottage, he glanced over. Earlier, while it was still light, he had searched the smoldering ashes for the missing Druid History. He had found nothing.

Quickening was not asleep; he knew she wouldn’t be. She was sitting in the shadow of a massive fir where the trees that ringed the clearing were farthest from the sleepers. He was still weak and could not go far, but he did not wish to speak to her where the other two might hear. She seemed to sense this; she rose as he approached and went with him wordlessly into the forest. When they were a safe distance away, she slowed and faced him.

“What would you tell me, Walker Boh?” she asked and pulled him down with her onto the cool matting of the woodland floor.

It took him a moment to speak. He felt that odd kinship to her without yet understanding why, and it almost changed his mind, making him frightened of the words he had come to say and of the reaction they would cause.

“Quickening,” he said finally, and the sound of her name coming from his lips stopped him anew. He tightened his resolve. “I was given a book of the Druid Histories by Cogline before he died. The book was destroyed in the fire. There was a passage in the book that said that the Black Elfstone is a Druid magic and possesses the power to bring back disappeared Paranor. That is the charge I was given by the shade of Allanon when I went to speak with him at the Hadeshorn some weeks ago—to restore Paranor and the Druids to the Four Lands. It was a charge that Cogline urged me to accept. He brought the Druid History to me to convince me it could be done.”

“I know this,” she said softly.

Her black eyes threatened to swallow him up, and he forced himself to look away. “I doubted him,” he continued, the words coming harder now. “I questioned his purpose in telling me, accused him of serving the interests of the Druids. I wanted nothing to do with any of them. But my curiosity about the Black Elfstone persuaded me to pursue the matter anyway, even after he was gone. I decided to try to find out where the Elfstone was hidden. I went to see the Grimpond.”

He looked up at her again and kept his gaze steady. “I was shown three visions. All three were of me. In the first I stood before the others in the company that had journeyed to the Hadeshorn to meet with the shade of Allanon and declared that I would sooner cut off my hand than help bring back the Druids. The vision mocked what I had said and showed me with my hand already gone. And now it is gone indeed. My hand and my arm both.”

His voice was shaking. “The third vision is of no importance here. But in the second vision I stood at the crest of a ridgeline that looked out over the world. A girl was with me. She lost her balance and reached for me. When she did, I thrust her away, and she fell. That girl, Quickening, was you.”

He waited for her response, the silence filling the space between them until it seemed to Walker as if nothing separated them. Quickening did not speak. She kept her eyes fixed on him, her features swept clean of expression.

“Surely you know of the Grimpond!” he exclaimed to her finally in exasperation.

Then he saw her blink and realized that she had been thinking of something else entirely. “It is an exiled spirit,” she said.

“One that riddles and lies, but speaks a measure of truth as well, hiding it in devious ways. It did so with the first vision. My arm is gone. I would not have the same thing happen with your life!”

She smiled faintly then, just a trace of movement at the corners of her mouth. “You will not hurt me, Walker Boh. Are you worried that you must?”

“The vision,” he repeated.

“The vision is that and nothing more,” she interrupted gently. “Visions are as much illusion as truth. Visions tell us of possibilities and do not speak in absolutes. We are not bound by them; they do not govern what is to be. Especially those of a creature like the Grimpond. It teases with falsehoods; it deceives. Do you fear it, Walker Boh? No, not you. Nor I. My father tells me what is to be and that is enough. You will bring no harm to me.”

Walker’s face felt pinched and tight. “He might be mistaken in what he says; he might not see everything that is to be.”

Quickening shook her head, reached out her slim hand, and touched his own. “You will be my protector on this journey, Walker Boh—all three of you, for as long as is necessary. Do not worry. I will be safe with you.”

Walker shook his head. “I could remain behind …”

Her hand lifted quickly to his mouth and touched it as if to wipe away some new poison. “No.” The word was sheathed in iron. “I will be safe if you are with me; I will be in danger only if you are not. You must come.”

He stared at her doubtfully. “Can you tell me anything of what I am expected to do?”

She shook her head.

“Or of the means by which I am to claim the Black Elfstone from Uhl Belk?”

Again, no, firmly.

“Or even how I am to protect you when I have but one arm and …?”