The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

The sound grew louder, crept closer, as if a sleeping giant had woken and was coming over for a look. Pen glanced quickly at Ahren, but the Druid’s gaze was intense and fixed, directed outward into the mist, searching.

“Uncle?” Khyber whispered, and there was an unmistakable hint of fear in her voice.

He nodded without looking at her. “It is the lake,” he said. “It is alive.”

Pen had no idea what that meant, but he didn’t like the sound of it. Lakes weren’t alive in the sense that they could breathe, so why did it sound as if this one was? He tried to pick up a rhythm to the sound, but it was unsteady and sporadic, harsh and labored. The ship sailed into the teeth of it, sliding smoothly through the fog, down the giant’s throat and into its belly. Pen could see it in his mind. He tried to change the picture to something less threatening, but could not.

Then abruptly, ethereal forms appeared, incomplete and hazy, riding the windless mist. They brought the sound with them, carried it in their shadowy, insubstantial bodies, bits and pieces echoing all about them as they moved. Pen shrank back as several approached, sliding over the railing and across the airship’s rain-slick deck. Cinnaminson gasped and her father swore angrily, swatting ineffectually at the wraith forms.

“The dead come to visit us,” Ahren Elessedil said quietly. “This is the Lazareen, the prison of the dead who have not found their way to the netherworld and still wander the Four Lands.”

“What do they want?” Khyber whispered.

Ahren shook his head. “I don’t know.”

The shades were all around the Skatelow, sweeping through her rigging like birds. The breathing grew louder, filling their ears, a windstorm of trouble building to something terrible. Slowly, steadily, vibrations began to shake the airship, causing the rigging to hum and the spars to rattle. Pen felt them all the way down to his bones. Seconds later, its pitch shifted to a frightening howl, a wail that engulfed them in an avalanche of sound. Pen went to his knees, racked with pain. The wail tightened like a vise around his head, crushing his ineffectual defenses. In the pilot box, in a futile effort to keep the sound at bay, Cinnaminson doubled over, her hands clapped over her ears. Gar Hatch was howling in fury, fighting to remain in control of the airship but losing the battle.

“Do something!” Khyber screamed at everyone and no one in particular, her eyes squeezed shut, her face twisted.

Like the legendary Sirens, the shades were driving the humans aboard the Skatelow mad. Their voices would paralyze the sailors, strip them of their sanity, and leave them catatonic. Already, Pen could feel himself losing control, his efforts at protecting his hearing and his mind failing. If he had the wishsong, he thought, he might have a way to fight back. But he had no defense against this, no magic to combat it. Nor did any of them, except perhaps …

He glanced quickly at Ahren Elessedil. The Druid was standing rigid and white-faced against the onslaught, hands weaving, lips moving, calling on his magic to save them. It was a terrible choice he was making, Pen knew. Using magic would give them away to the Galaphile in an instant. It would lead Terek Molt and his Gnome Hunters right to them. But what other choice did they have? The boy dropped to his knees, fighting to keep from screaming, the wailing so frenzied and wild that the deck planking was vibrating.

Then abruptly, everything went perfectly still, and they were enfolded in a silence so deep and vast that it felt as if they were packed in cotton wadding and buried in the ground. Around them, the mist continued to swirl and the shades to fly, but the wailing was no longer heard.

Pen got to his feet hesitantly, watching as the others did the same.

“We’re safe, but we’ve given ourselves away,” Ahren said quietly. He looked drained of strength, his face drawn and worn.

“Maybe they didn’t come after us,” Khyber offered.

Her uncle did not respond. Instead, he moved away from them, crossing the deck to the pilot box. After a moment’s hesitation, Pen and Khyber followed. Gar Hatch turned at their approach, his hard face twisting with anger. “This is your doing, Druid!” he snapped. “Get below and stay there!”

“Cinnaminson,” Ahren Elessedil said to the girl, ignoring her father. She swung toward the sound of his voice, her pale face damp with mist, her blind eyes wide. “We have to hide. Can you find a place for us to do so?”

“Don’t answer him!” Gar Hatch roared. He swung down out of the pilot box and advanced on the Druid. “Let her be! She’s blind, in case you hadn’t noticed! How do you expect her to help?”