The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

He fell asleep almost immediately after reaching their bedchamber, too exhausted even to remove his clothes. He slept soundly until Rue woke him to make him eat something, and then he fell right back asleep. He dreamed, but his dreams were disjointed and strange, a collection of images from his past life and from other lives entirely, all connected in a way that made them surreal and unfathomable. He thought he was aware of Rue speaking to him more than once, but it wasn’t enough to bring him out of the dreams.

When he woke again, the sun was setting. He was alone in the room, a tray of food sitting on the table by his bed. He ate, then washed and moved over to sit by the window and watch the sun disappear and the moon come up. Stars began to appear in the darkening sky north.

It was another half hour before Rue reappeared.

“You’re awake,” she said as she came through the doorway and saw him. “How do you feel?”

“As if I’ve been thrown off a cliff. But better than I felt earlier. The dizziness is gone; the aching isn’t so bad. I expect I’ll live. Where were you?”

“Traunt Rowan took me for a walk in the Druid gardens.” She smiled. “They really are beautiful, and I would have loved to see more of them. But the walk turned into an inquisition. I spent most of my time fending off questions about Pen. The Druids don’t know much about our son, but they seem awfully eager to learn. Too eager.”

She kept her voice low, moving over to sit beside him on the bench. “On the other hand, I got a good look around. I have a better idea of how to get around than I did before. I thought we might want to know where all the doors and windows are, in case we end up having to get out of here quickly.”

She put her arm around him. “You scared me this morning. Are you sure you’re all right?”

He leaned over and kissed her, then put his lips against her ear. “I’ve been thinking while you were out,” he whispered. “Thinking about this morning and what happened in the cold chamber. I have some ideas that might be worth considering.”

“Tell me about Penderrin first,” she insisted, putting her arms around him and drawing him close, her voice a whisper as well. “I’ve been waiting all day for you to be coherent enough to talk to me. You said you found him?”

He nodded into her shoulder. “In the Charnal Mountains. It happened too quickly for me to be sure exactly where he is; I couldn’t take the time to find out without giving away what I was doing. But it was definitely him.”

“Why would he be all the way up there?”

“I don’t know.” He took a deep breath. “Here’s what I do know. I was doing a general search through the scrye waters for any sign of Pen or Grianne. I found Pen in the Charnals, like I said, but I moved away from the contact before Shadea or one of the others could tell what I was doing. Maybe they wouldn’t have known anyway, but I didn’t want to chance it. I purposely didn’t search Paranor on the grid; after all, that was where Grianne was supposed to have disappeared. What was the point?”

“A question you might have answered differently if you had stopped to think about it,” she said quietly.

He nodded. “True enough. Anyway, I worked my way back to Pen to make certain he was in the Charnals, that I hadn’t made a mistake. Then I moved my hands away again, trying to decide what to do next. I let my concentration lapse, and my hands drifted back down over Paranor. That was when the scrye waters exploded and threw me away from the basin. Shadea claimed that Paranor’s warding magic responded to my intrusion, defending the Keep. But I wasn’t trying to intrude. I wasn’t doing anything threatening. What I was doing was searching for Pen and Grianne, and I think the magic that wards Paranor reacted to that. I think it reacted because I found something it was trying to hide.”

She was silent a moment. “But it wasn’t Penderrin because he is somewhere in the Charnals. So it has to be Grianne.”

“I think so. When she disappeared, Tagwen left Paranor without confiding in any of the Druids who might have helped him. I think the key to discovering what happened to my sister lies here, and that these Druids who claim to be her friends are covering it up.”

“But you were brought here to find her. Why would they do that if they are trying to hide where she is?”

“I think we were brought here to find Pen and found Grianne by accident. Did you see Shadea’s face when I explained what I was doing when the magic threw me back from the scrye waters? She was elated! I think it confirmed something she already knew about Grianne. It’s Pen she’s looking for, but she had to tell me to look for my sister, too, because it would have seemed odd not to.”

Bek felt her shake her head slowly against his own. “I still don’t understand what Penderrin has to do with all this. I still don’t see why he’s up in the Charnal Mountains, miles from everything.”