The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

She released her grip on the Stones reluctantly and sank back against the pilothouse wall. The use of small magics was commonplace within the Druid’s Keep. Small magics would not be noticed. But the Elfstones were a large magic that no one could mistake for anything other than what it was. Nothing could disguise the extent of their power. Another way would have to be found.

Another way, she thought, that utilized her skills and training as an apprentice Druid. A way that relied upon the lessons she had been taught by her mentor and best friend before his death. It was all she had left to call upon. It was what she would have to employ if she was to have any chance at all of saving Pen.

She went still inside as she measured herself for the task she was about to undertake. She had studied hard the skills that Ahren felt she should master. He had given her so little; their time was too short for more. But what he had given her would have to be enough. Most of what she could call upon relied on her ability to concentrate and to center herself. She had worked hard during the voyage to Anatcherae to become accomplished at both. She would put it to the test.

Gathering her resolve, she rose, moved over to the side of the airship, and looked down. The yard directly below her was empty. She went over the side quickly, down the rope ladder and onto the ground, not bothering to hide her descent or even her presence. Subtlety would not serve her well just then. The key to her success lay in boldness. She stood at the bottom of the ladder, looking around for the Gnome guards. Still wrapped and hooded by the cloak she had stolen earlier, at a distance she could pass for one of them. It was her best chance.

She picked out the guards in the darkness, then started toward the window-lit walls of the Keep as if it made no difference to her whether they were there or not.

Darkness served her purpose well. She was shadowed for much of the way by the hulls of the airships and then the walls of the parapets and buildings; she was just another solitary figure crossing the yard, no different in appearance from the others. One of the guards glanced her way as she advanced toward the doors she had spied ahead, but he made no attempt to challenge her. When another turned toward her in the making of his rounds, she released a quick bit of magic to create an unexpected noise behind him, causing him to turn back again. In the windows ahead, shadows passed through the light, their appearance unexpected and startling. She felt her throat tighten, but did not slow. Keep going, she told herself.

She reached the doorway after what seemed an interminable length of time, pulled down on the handle to release the latch, and stepped inside.

A large anteroom, its ceiling cavernous and smoky with torch burn, its walls hung with heraldic pennants, opened into three long corridors that stretched away through pools of torchlight and layered shadows to lines of closed doors, high windows, and dark alcoves. She started forward and stopped. A pair of Gnome Hunters stood to either side of her, neither more than a dozen paces away, armed and gimlet-eyed as they watched her freeze in place.

She had no time to think and only a moment to react.

She threw back the hood to her cloak and fastened the one on the right with a dark glare. “Where have they taken him?”

The question was asked in Elfish, a language with which she did not think he would be familiar. She was right. He stared blankly at her, a hint of surprise shadowing his sharp features.

“The boy!” she snapped, speaking now in Callahorn’s tongue, a Southland dialect everyone in the Borderlands spoke, accommodating him in a way that would demonstrate her superiority. “Where is he?”

She shifted her gaze quickly from the first Gnome to the second, her impatience evident, her sense of command clear. She radiated what she hoped was Druid authority, giving clear indication that as a member of the order, she was where she belonged and had a right to ask the questions she was asking. There was no reason to doubt her. All that was required was a quick, concise response.

Not surprisingly, the Gnomes had trouble supplying one. “The cells, I think,” the second Gnome told her in the Southland dialect. He said something to the other in Gnomish, but his companion simply shrugged. “Yes, the cells. To be held until the Ard Rhys returns.”

She nodded perfunctorily and marched past them down the central corridor, acting as if she knew exactly what she was doing, when in fact she had no idea at all. The cells? Where were the cells? Below ground somewhere? She couldn’t ask that, not of these guards. Someone else, maybe. She was inside and she had a destination, and that was going to have to be enough.