The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

A window-size eye blinked, a lazy lowering and lifting of a scaly lid.

Pen caught his breath and held it. The cluster of rocks began to assume shape and take on definition. Limbs studded with spikes crooked awkwardly at the joints to end in claws that were each the size of his leg. Scales larger than blankets layered a body that would dwarf a small cottage. Bony ridges ran in parallel lines down a broad back and long, reticulated tail. A triangular head was tucked between its forelegs, encrusted snout and brow thick with armor and blunt horns.

“Shades,” he whispered.

He had never seen a dragon, of course. No one in his lifetime had ever seen a dragon. Most types were extinct. Those that weren’t were consigned to the Forbidding, like the one before him, or so deeply and thoroughly entrenched in mountain caverns and wilderness forests that no human had ever ventured in far enough to encounter them. But he knew what dragons were and what they looked like, and the creature facing him was clearly a dragon.

It was easily the biggest living creature that Pen had ever seen. It was bigger than he had imagined anything could be. Fascinated in spite of himself, he stared at it. He wondered what it was doing there. He wondered why it hadn’t eaten him.

He wondered if it planned to.

He became aware all at once that it was looking at him. It was watching through half-closed lids with a sleepy, almost dreamy gaze. It seemed mesmerized, like a cat stretched out for a nap, lazy and content, drifting in and out of private reveries. Then it occurred to him, almost as an afterthought, that the dragon wasn’t looking at him.

It was looking at the darkwand.

Or, more particularly, at the glow of its runes.

At first, he thought he must be mistaken. After all, why would the dragon be interested in the staff and its runes? Was the beast sentient? It certainly didn’t look it. But maybe it understood something of magic and of talismans and recognized the darkwand for what it was.

He didn’t think that was right, though. The way the dragon was watching the staff suggested that it was all but hypnotized, that its interest was one of almost primordial attraction. Pen glanced down, watching the way the light played across the runes, how it worked itself up and down the staff in ever-changing patterns, how it brightened and dimmed, pulsed and steadied, reinventing itself over and over. The dragon was watching, too, fascinated by the movement of the light as it danced from rune to rune.

Pen tried an experiment. Taking his cloak, he covered the top half of the staff, blocking the light.

Instantly, the great horn-encrusted head lifted, the triangular snout swung about, and its maw split wide in a hiss that sounded like an explosion. Rows of blackened teeth revealed themselves, some still clotted with bits of flesh, some with bones wedged between them. A gaping throat as black as damp ashes pulsed and shimmered, and the stench of carrion on its breath flattened the boy against the rock wall of his all-too-inadequate shelter. Pen gagged and nearly fainted, but he retained sufficient presence of mind to uncloak the darkwand at once. As the runes began anew their intricate play across the polished surface of the wood, the dragon slowly settled back into place, its maw closing, its eyelids drooping, content.

That was a really bad idea, Pen thought, taking great gulps of air to clear his head.

He remained where he was for a moment, sagging against the wall of his shelter, the darkwand held firmly in front of him, his talisman against a monster with breath that would melt iron. He hung his head for a time, thinking he was going to vomit, but when the nausea had passed, he straightened and looked out again at the dragon, trying to think what to do. He still wasn’t certain what was happening with the darkwand, which until then he had assumed would respond only to his thoughts of the Ard Rhys. But it had apparently begun to glow even before he was awake and knew what was happening. How could that be?

He returned his attention to the dragon, saw how its eyes were fixed on the glowing runes, listened to how its breathing came slowly and evenly as it crouched there, waiting. Waiting on what? He didn’t know. How long did dragons wait on things, anyway? He wondered suddenly if he was trapped. He hadn’t thought of it before, but it might well be that just as the dragon wouldn’t let him cover up the light, it wouldn’t let him take it away, either. That would mean he was stuck in these rocks until the dragon tired of him and moved on.

Which might take a very long time, he realized. Time he didn’t have to spare.