“The first order of business is to find a way out of the city,” Damson declared between bites of her breakfast, seated across from him at the little table. Her forehead was lined with determination. “We can’t go on like this.”
“I wish we could find out something about the Mole.”
She nodded, her eyes shifting away. “I’ve looked for him when I’ve been out.” She shook her head. “The Mole is resourceful. He has stayed alive a long time.”
Not with the Shadowen hunting for him, Par almost said, then thought better of it. Damson would be thinking the same thing anyway. “What do I do today?”
She looked back at him. “Same as always. You stay put. They still don’t know about me. They only know about you.”
“You hope.”
She sighed. “I hope. Anyway, I have to find a way for us to get past the walls, out of Tyrsis to where we can discover what’s happened to Padishar and the others.”
He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back. “I feel useless just sitting around here.”
“Sometimes waiting is what works best, Par.”
“And I don’t like letting you go out alone.”
She smiled. “And I don’t like leaving you here by yourself. But that’s the way it has to be for now. We have to be smart about this.”
She pulled on her street cloak, her magician’s garb, for she still appeared regularly in the marketplace to do tricks for the children, keeping up the appearance that everything was the same as always. A pale shaft of light penetrated the gloom of the passageways that had brought them, and with a wave back to him she disappeared into it and was gone.
He spent the remainder of the morning being restless, prowling the narrow confines of his shelter. Once, he climbed to the top of the stairs leading back to the street where he tested the lock that fastened the heavy wooden door and found it secure. He wandered back through the tunnels that branched from the gristmill cellar and discovered that each dead-ended at a storage hold or bin, all long empty and abandoned. When noon came, he took his lunch from the remains of yesterday’s foodstuffs, still cached in Damson’s backpack, then stretched out on the bed to nap and fell into a deep sleep.
When he finally woke, the light had gone silver, and the day was fading rapidly into dusk. He lay blinking sleepily for a moment, then realized that Damson had not returned. She had been gone almost ten hours. He rose quickly, worried now, thinking that she should have been back long ago. It was possible that she had come in and gone out again, but not likely. She would have woken him. He would have woken himself. He frowned darkly, uneasily, twisted his body from side to side to ease the kinks, and wondered what to do.
Hungry, in spite of his concern, he decided to eat something, and finished off the last of the cheese and bread. There was a little ale in the stoppered skin, but it tasted stale and warm.
Where was Damson?
Par Ohmsford had known the risks from the beginning, the dangers that Damson Rhee faced every time she left him and went out into the city. If the Mole was captured, they would make him talk. If the safe holes were compromised, she might be, too. If Padishar was taken, there were no secrets left. He knew the risks; he had told himself he had accepted them. But faced for the first time since escaping from the sewers that the worst had happened, he found he was not prepared after all. He found that he was terrified.
Damson. If anything had happened to her . . .
A scuffling sound caught his attention, and he left the thought unfinished. He started, then wheeled about, searching for the source of the noise. It was behind him, at the top of the stairs, at the door leading to the street.
Someone was playing with the lock.
At first he thought it must be Damson, forced for some reason to try to enter through the back. But Damson did not have a key. And the sound he was hearing was of a key scraping in the lock. The fumbling continued, ending in a sharp snick as the lock released.
Par reached down for the Sword of Shannara and strapped it quickly across his back. Whoever was up there, it was not Damson. He snatched up the backpack, thinking to hide any trace of his being there. But his bootprints were everywhere, the bed was mussed, and small crumbs of food littered the table. Besides, there was no time. The intruder had lifted the lock from its hasp and was opening the door.
The Elf Queen of Shannara
Terry Brooks's books
- Alanna The First Adventure
- Alone The Girl in the Box
- Asgoleth the Warrior
- Awakening the Fire
- Between the Lives
- Black Feathers
- Bless The Beauty
- By the Sword
- In the Arms of Stone Angels
- Knights The Eye of Divinity
- Knights The Hand of Tharnin
- Knights The Heart of Shadows
- Mind the Gap
- Omega The Girl in the Box
- On the Edge of Humanity
- The Alchemist in the Shadows
- Possessing the Grimstone
- The Steel Remains
- The 13th Horseman
- The Age Atomic
- The Alchemaster's Apprentice
- The Alchemy of Stone
- The Ambassador's Mission
- The Anvil of the World
- The Apothecary
- The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf
- The Bible Repairman and Other Stories
- The Black Lung Captain
- The Black Prism
- The Blue Door
- The Bone House
- The Book of Doom
- The Breaking
- The Cadet of Tildor
- The Cavalier
- The Circle (Hammer)
- The Claws of Evil
- The Concrete Grove
- The Conduit The Gryphon Series
- The Cry of the Icemark
- The Dark
- The Dark Rider
- The Dark Thorn
- The Dead of Winter
- The Devil's Kiss
- The Devil's Looking-Glass
- The Devil's Pay (Dogs of War)
- The Door to Lost Pages
- The Dress
- The Emperor of All Things
- The Emperors Knife
- The End of the World
- The Eternal War
- The Executioness
- The Exiled Blade (The Assassini)
- The Fate of the Dwarves
- The Fate of the Muse
- The Frozen Moon
- The Garden of Stones
- The Gate Thief
- The Gates
- The Ghoul Next Door
- The Gilded Age
- The Godling Chronicles The Shadow of God
- The Guest & The Change
- The Guidance
- The High-Wizard's Hunt
- The Holders
- The Honey Witch
- The House of Yeel
- The Lies of Locke Lamora
- The Living Curse
- The Living End
- The Magic Shop
- The Magicians of Night
- The Magnolia League
- The Marenon Chronicles Collection
- The Marquis (The 13th Floor)
- The Mermaid's Mirror
- The Merman and the Moon Forgotten
- The Original Sin
- The Pearl of the Soul of the World
- The People's Will
- The Prophecy (The Guardians)
- The Reaping
- The Rebel Prince
- The Reunited
- The Rithmatist
- The_River_Kings_Road
- The Rush (The Siren Series)
- The Savage Blue
- The Scar-Crow Men
- The Science of Discworld IV Judgement Da
- The Scourge (A.G. Henley)
- The Sentinel Mage
- The Serpent in the Stone
- The Serpent Sea
- The Shadow Cats
- The Slither Sisters
- The Song of Andiene