The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

He paused. “Kermadec was fourteen years old when he did this.” He arched one eyebrow at the boy. “That’s the sort of man you’ve placed your trust in, should you be in any doubt about the matter.”


They set out again shortly afterwards and walked the rest of the way across the valley into a deep wood that ran up the flank of the mountains and into the valleys and defiles in dark green fingers. The last of the light faded, and night drew in about them. By then, Kermadec had brought the Trolls and their charges to a grassy clearing by a stream that tumbled down out of the rocks into a high-banked pool that then spilled over to meander on across the valley west. They set camp, putting themselves safely within the cover of the fir and spruce and forgoing any sort of fire. They ate their dinner ration cold and rolled into their blankets to sleep without wasting further time.

But before they fell asleep, Khyber eased over next to Pen. Even in the darkness, he could see the troubled intensity of her dark eyes. “I’ve something to tell you, Pen. I’d forgotten earlier, in all the chaos, and when I remembered, I couldn’t decide right away whether you should know. But I guess you should. I can’t be sure if it’s true, but Traunt Rowan told Kermadec that the Druids have made prisoners of your parents.”

Her dark eyes studied him carefully. “I’m sorry. Especially if I made a mistake in telling you. Are you all right?”

He wasn’t, of course. He wasn’t anything close to all right. He felt hollowed out, drained of any good feelings he might have salvaged from their escape from Taupo Rough. It was bad enough that he carried the weight of his guilt from all of the others who had suffered on his behalf. He had thought his parents safe. The King of the Silver River had said he would warn them of the danger, that he would take steps to protect them. But perhaps that hadn’t been enough and not even they were to be spared.

“It might have been a lie,” she said. Her hand rested on his. “In fact, it probably is a lie. They would say anything to get to you. Even something as evil as that.”

But it wasn’t a lie. He knew it instinctively. It was the truth. Somehow, the Druids had lured his parents to Paranor and locked them away. What was expected of them, he couldn’t be sure. But he was afraid for them because he thought that anyone connected with him, or with his aunt, was at risk. His impulse was to abandon the quest and go to them at once, to do anything that would help them. But of course, that was exactly what the Druids were hoping for, what they intended by giving out such information. He would not be helping his parents by giving in to his impulses. He could only help by finding his aunt and bringing her home again. She was the one who could save them all.

He remained awake long after the rest of them were asleep, trying to reassemble the shattered pieces of his confidence, trying to reassure himself that he wouldn’t give way to what he was feeling.


They set out again at dawn, climbing out of the valley and into the jagged peaks of the Klu Mountains. The Klu were rugged, barren pinnacles that time and a shifting of the earth’s crust had compressed as if they had been grasped by a giant’s hand, the rock cracked and broken by the pressure, eroded by wind and water, and reshaped into strange formations that barely resembled the mountains they had once been. Narrow defiles and deep chasms split the rock at every turn, and passes were as likely to lead through stacked rocks and weather-carved fissures as along ledges or across slides. Nothing made sense about the Klu, which seemed to comprise an amalgam of every geological configuration that nature could devise.

As the day wore on and the air cooled at the higher elevations, the mist thickened about them. It did so slowly, but noticeably, so that Pen had time to realize that they would soon be climbing blindly into the rocks. It was not a pleasant prospect, given the treacherous terrain with its difficult and uncertain footing. But Kermadec pressed ahead, moving them along as quickly as conditions would allow, taking them off the flank of the mountains and into a series of defiles that twisted and wound through cliffs towering hundreds of feet above them.

The mist dissipated, but forward progress slowed. Loose stone littered the trail, and ice patches coated its surface. Wind howled overhead and down the gaps in the cliffs, buffeting them as they struggled to put one foot in front of the other without slipping. The path fell away to the left, the resulting cliff a sheer and unbroken drop that vanished into blackness.