The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

After Grianne Ohmsford had been stolen away as a child and begun her training as the Ilse Witch, fear was the first emotion she had learned to control. It wasn’t easy at first. Her family had been killed and she was hunted still. She had no friends save her rescuer, the Morgawr, and he was as dark as anything she had ever imagined. He was impatient and demanding, as well, and when she did not perform as he required, he made certain she realized the consequences of failure. It took her years to get past her fears, to harden herself sufficiently that in the end she was afraid of nothing, not even him.

But she was afraid now. The fear returned in paralyzing waves that stole away her strength and rooted her in place. It was the Warlock Lord she had summoned, the most powerful and dangerous creature that had ever lived. What could she hope to do with him?

The huge apparition rolled toward her once more, easing across the turgid waters.

–Speak my name–

She could not. She could do nothing but stare. She had summoned the Druids’ worst enemy, their most implacable foe, to ask for help that she couldn’t possibly hope to receive. It was the worst mistake she had ever made, and she had made many. She had not imagined that anyone but Walker would appear, just as he always did when she came to the Hadeshorn. But it was not the Hadeshorn of her world, but of the Forbidding, and it made perfect sense that in the world of the Jarka Ruus, of the banished people, of the despised and the hated, Brona’s would be the shade that would respond to any summons.

She sensed his impatience; he would not wait much longer for her response. If she failed to give it, he would depart, returning to the netherworld and stealing away her last hope. Refusing to speak with him was pointless. He would already know who she was and what she was doing there. He would know what she was seeking.

“No one speaks your name,” she said.

–You will. You will dare anything, Ilse Witch. Haven’t you always–

She cringed inwardly but kept her face expressionless. “You are Brona,” she said. “You are the Warlock Lord.”

–I am as you name me, Straken. The name causes you to be afraid. It causes you to question what you have done. As it should. Tell me. Why do you summon me–

She mustered her courage, telling herself that he was dead, only a shade, and incapable of harming her physically. Alive, he would have been a very real threat. Dead, he was a threat only if she allowed him to be. If she kept him at bay and controlled her emotions, she was safe enough. She told herself that, but she was not entirely sure. It was not the Four Lands, after all. She was in another world, and the rules might be different.

“I am lost, and I want to go home again.”

–You carry your home inside you, dark and tattered as the robes I wear. You bear it in your heart, a sorry, empty vessel. Ask me something better–

Behind him, the lake rumbled in discontent, and a scattering of lesser shades reappeared at the edges of the Warlock Lord’s dark form, hovering cautiously.

“Who sent me here?” she asked him.

He made a sound that could have been laughter or something more terrible. Beneath his ragged form, the waters hissed and steamed.

–Not those you suspect, foolish girl–

“Not other Druids? They didn’t send me?”

–They are pawns–

Pawns? It made her pause. “Who then?”

The dark form shifted anew, blowing spray and cold into her face, sending shivers down her spine.

–Ask me something more interesting–

Frustrated, she took a moment to think. Shades were notorious for giving vague or incomplete answers to the living. The trick was in determining from those answers what was real and what was false. It would be doubly hard here.

“Why are you even speaking with me?” she asked impulsively. “I am Ard Rhys of the Druids, your enemies in life.”

–You are not what you see yourself to be. You are a changeling who dissembles and pretends. You hide whom you really are inside. Others fail to see it, but I know the truth. I speak to you because you are not like them. You are like me–

Although it made her cold inside, she dismissed the comparison out of hand; she understood well enough its source. He was not the first to see her that way nor would he be the last. “How do I get home again? How do I find my way back?”

–You cannot. Someone must find you–

Her heart sank, but she forged ahead anyway. “No one will ever find me here. No one can even get to me.”

–You are already found. Someone already comes–

“Here? For me?” She felt her heart jump. “Who does this?”

–A boy–

That stopped her in her tracks. “What boy?”

–He is your way back. When he comes for you, you must be ready to go with him–

A boy. She took a deep breath, her throat tightening with the effort. A boy. There was more to this, there had to be, but she knew he wouldn’t tell her what it was. He would make her wait, because that was the nature of the game he played. Besides, the future was uncertain, even for a shade. He could not tell her if the boy would succeed or fail. He could tell her only that the boy was coming. He would let her imagine the rest. She must go another way.

She pulled her cloak closer about her, aware suddenly of how cold she was. It was his presence, the nearness of his evil. Even in death, it was there, in the spray off the lake, in the currents of the air, in the darkness pressing down on her. Death, come alive in the form of his shade, gave power to what he was.