The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

Rue Meridian sat with her back against the cell’s far wall, facing the locked door. Her prison, like Bek’s, was deep beneath the walls and buildings of the Druid’s Keep. There was only the single door. The door was solid metal, save for a flap at its bottom, which permitted her jailers to slide a tray of food inside without opening the door, and a series of slits at eye level, which let in slivers of torchlight from the hallway beyond. Within her cell were a wooden bed frame and mattress, a blanket, a slop bucket, and a broom. The broom was a mystery. Was she supposed to sweep up the cell when it got too dusty? Was she supposed to knock down cobwebs?

Since she had been shut away, she had not been allowed out. Not once, even for a moment. Nor had anyone come inside. She had heard the guards moving in the hallway, and she had looked out in an effort to see them once or twice. But the guards kept out of her line of sight and spoke in low enough tones that they were out of hearing, as well. They had not spoken to her through the door. Other than delivering her food and allowing her to slide the bucket out for emptying now and then, they had paid no attention to her at all. As far as she could determine, in the minds of her captors she had ceased to exist.

So she sat and waited for something to happen, all the while thinking of ways she might escape.

She thought constantly of her son, frantic for his safety. Her husband was resourceful and would be able to help himself. And she would be fine. But Pen lacked their experience and their skills; he would be at the mercy of whoever went to find him. She knew enough of Shadea a’Ru to appreciate how determined she was to eradicate the Ohmsfords. It wouldn’t stop with Grianne, though she was the excuse for the purge. It would continue until the last Ohmsford was wiped from the face of the Four Lands.

Thinking of it left her furious. She had never trusted the Druids, never cared for their secretive ways and manipulative schemes. It had been bad enough when there was only one, and that one was Walker Boh. But now there were dozens of them, not only within the walls of Paranor, but scattered throughout the Four Lands, as well. She had always felt at risk, especially with Grianne as Ard Rhys. Her feelings for Bek’s sister were unchanged. In her mind, Grianne would always be the Ilse Witch. Bek’s assurances notwithstanding, she had never been convinced that Grianne’s transformation from dark witch to white queen was real. Her attitude was not so different from that of many others. She could understand why some among the Druids were so eager to be rid of her.

But the real problem was her certainty that their connection with Grianne put them all in danger. It didn’t matter that they were not close to the Ard Rhys and had nothing to do with the Druid order. It didn’t matter that their lives were so different. Blood and history bound them inextricably. She had always known that the cauldron of mistrust and dislike Grianne stirred among those who were troubled by her position of power as Ard Rhys was in danger of spilling over onto the rest of them.

Her present circumstances seemed to bear that out.

She stared at the iron door and wished she had thought to stick a throwing knife into her boot. She wished she had any kind of weapon at all. She wished she had two minutes alone outside that door.

After a time, she dozed, drifting away on thoughts of her family and better times. In the near blackness of her prison, sleep was the only form of relief she could find.

She did not know how long she slept, only that it ended suddenly and unexpectedly. She awoke with a start, her sleep broken by an odd sound from beyond her cell. She blinked in confusion, sensing that what she had heard was the collapse of something. She sat up straight, listening for more.

Then a key twisted in the lock, metal scraping on metal, and the lock released with a sharp snick. She got to her feet quickly and took a deep breath to steady herself, to clear her sleep-fogged mind. She didn’t know what to expect, didn’t know how to prepare herself. She snatched up the broom, the only thing at hand that might serve as a weapon, and moved to stand close by the door.

The door opened, and a black-cloaked figure stepped through. One gloved hand came up quickly in warning as she started to move out of her crouch. “Wait!”

The hands rose to pull back the hood, and she found herself confronted by a young man with angular features and a quizzical expression. He blinked at her and smiled. “No need for that. I’ve come to help.” He glanced over his shoulder into the hallway, his lank brown hair falling over his forehead and into his eyes. “Hurry. We haven’t much time. They’ll discover you’ve gone soon enough and they’ll know where it is they must look.”

Satisfied to be free, to have a chance at escaping the Keep, she went with him without questioning their destination. They slipped from the cell into the hallway, where she saw the collapsed form of the Gnome Hunter who had been keeping guard outside the door. There was no blood, no mark on him anywhere.

“A sleeping potion,” whispered her rescuer, his young face brightening with pleasure. “Worked on the one at the top of the stairs, too. They have a warning system to prevent your escape that travels from the bottom up, but not from the top down. They expect any attempt at escape to come from you. They don’t think you have any friends here.”