The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

Ahren Elessedil’s hand lifted in a warding gesture. “Don’t come any closer, Captain,” he said. Gar Hatch stopped, shaking with rage. “Let’s not pretend we both don’t know what she can and can’t do. She’s your eyes in this muck. She can see better than either of us. If she can’t, then send her below and steer this ship yourself! Because a Druid warship tracks us, and if you don’t find a way off this lake, and find it quickly, it will be on top of us!”


Gar Hatch came forward another step, his fists knotted. “I should never have brought you aboard! I should never have agreed to help you! I do, and look what it costs me! You take my daughter, you take my ship, and you will probably cost me my life!”

Ahren stood his ground. “Don’t be stupid. I take nothing from you but your services, and I paid for those. Among them, like it or not, is your daughter’s talent. Now give her your permission to find a place for us to hide before it is too late!”

Hatch started to say something, then his eyes widened in shock as the huge, ironclad rams of the Galaphile surged out of the fog bank.

“Cinnaminson!” he shouted, leaping into the pilot box and seizing the controls.

He dropped the nose of the Skatelow so hard and so fast that Pen and his companions slid forward into the side of the pilot box, grabbing onto railings and ropes and anything else that would catch them. The airship plummeted, then leveled out and shot forward into the haze, all in seconds. As quick as that, they were alone again, the Galaphile vanished back into the fog.

“Which way?” Gar Hatch demanded of his daughter.

Her voice steady, Cinnaminson centered herself on the console, both hands gripping the railing, and began to give her father instructions, calling out headings. Pen, Khyber, and Ahren Elessedil righted themselves and snapped their safety harnesses in place, keeping close to the pilot box to watch what was happening. Gar Hatch ignored them, speaking only to his daughter, listening to her replies and making the necessary adjustments in the setting of the Skatelow’s course.

Pen looked over his shoulder, then skyward, searching the mist for the Galaphile. She was nowhere to be seen. But she was close at hand. He sensed her, massive and deadly, an implacable hunter in search of her prey. He felt her bulk pressing down through the haze, looking to crush him over the Lazareen the way she would have crushed him over the Rainbow Lake almost three weeks ago.

He was aware suddenly that the shades had vanished, gone back into the shroud of mist and gloom they had swum through moments earlier, sunk down into the waters of the Lazareen.

“Why didn’t the dead go after Terek Molt?” he asked Ahren suddenly. “Why didn’t they attack the Galaphile, too?”

The Druid glanced over. “Because Molt protects his vessel with Druid magic, something he can afford to do and we cannot.” He paused, hands knuckle-white about the pilot box railing, droplets of water beaded on his narrow Elven features. “Besides, Penderrin, he may have summoned the dead in the first place. He has that power.”

“Shades,” the boy whispered, and the word was like a prayer.

They sailed ahead in silence, an island once more in the mist and fog, a rabbit in flight from a fox. All eyes searched the gloom for the Galaphile, while Cinnaminson called out course headings and Gar Hatch made the airship respond. The wind picked up again, set loose as they reached the Lazareen’s center, and the haze began to dissipate. Below, the lake waters were choppy and dark, the sound of their waves clear in the fog’s silence.

Ahren Elessedil leaned over the pilot box railing. “Where do we sail?” he asked Gar Hatch.

“The Slags,” the big man answered dully. “There’s plenty of places to hide in there, places we will never be found. We just need to clear the lake.”

Pen touched the Druid’s arm and looked at him questioningly.

“Wetlands,” the Druid said. “Miles and miles of them, stretching all along the northeastern shoreline. Swamp and flood plain, cypress and cedar. A tangle of old growth and grasses blanketed with mist and filled with quicksand that can swallow whole ships. Dangerous, even if you know what you’re doing.” He nodded toward Hatch. “He’s made the right choice.”

She has, Pen corrected silently. For it was Cinnaminson who set their course, through whose mind’s eye they sought their way and in whose hands they placed their trust.

The mist continued to thin, the sky above opening to a scattering of stars, the lake below silver-tipped and shimmering. Their cover would be gone in a few minutes, and Pen saw no sign of the shore. The mist still hung in thick curtains in the distance, so he assumed the shore was there. But it was a long way off, and the wind was in their face, slowing their passage.

Then, all at once, clouds blew in, and rain began to fall, sweeping across the decking in a cold, black wash, and quickly they were soaked through. It poured for a time, thunder booming in the distance, and then just as suddenly it stopped again. At the same moment, the wind died to nothing.