The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

When he felt he had waited long enough, he took another step.

This time the dragon slowly extended one great spiked foreleg in the manner of a cat toying with a mouse that had become its favorite plaything. It took its time, reaching out slowly and leisurely until the foreleg was stretched directly across the path Pen had intended to take, blocking it.

Pen stared at the dragon in dismay, then slowly backed into the rocks once more.

He spent the rest of the day hoping for a miracle. If only the dragon would grow bored. If only it would grow hungry. If only it would leave for just a few minutes. Didn’t it have something else to do or somewhere else to go? Dragons must have lives like other creatures, habits and patterns of behavior that this one would be compelled to act on eventually. If he was just patient, if he could just wait it out, it would have to move on.

Daylight faded and night set in. It began to rain, a soft steady drizzle. Pen stuck his head far enough out of the shelter to catch a few drops in his open mouth, then used his cloak to gather a little more and sucked the water from the cloth. All the while, the dragon lay there, its scaly hide glistening, its eyes lidded, watching the darkwand and its glowing runes.

Eventually, Pen grew sleepy once more. He worried for a short while about what the staff would do when he closed his eyes, then dismissed the matter. Apparently, it would continue to glow, just as it must have done the previous night when the dragon was first attracted, just as it must have done while he was napping earlier. Otherwise, the dragon would have eaten him already. He wondered again how the staff could function independently of his thoughts when it had seemed before that it relied on them. He was missing something, wasn’t picking up on what should have been obvious if he wasn’t so hungry and exhausted. He wished he could think more clearly, that he could reason better.

He closed his eyes and dreamed about his home and his parents, about how things had been not two months earlier. He had been so anxious for an adventure, so willing for a change in his mundane existence. He had embraced the chance to go in search of the tanequil with Tagwen and the others. He had relished the excitement that would result.

He wished now that none of it had ever happened. He wished that things were back to the way they had been.

He fell asleep, and his wishes drifted away.





TWELVE


Dreams, bits and pieces of incomplete thoughts and unfinished stories, came and went with the swiftness of shadows and light in a cloud-swept forest. They were bright and bold and filled with promise, and Bek Ohmsford rode them like a bird across landscapes that stretched away forever. Sometimes he was in motion for the duration of the dream without ever touching the earth. Sometimes he felt the solid ground just long enough to be reassured that it was still there before winging away again. Nothing of what he saw was familiar to him. People came and went in the course of his travels, but he did not know who they were or why they were there. He had left his waking life behind; he had gone ahead of those he once knew.

It could have been a time of peace and contentment, but the dreams were interspersed with nightmares, and the nightmares were horrifying. Some were memories of things in his past, of creatures and events that he could never forget. Some were dark prophecies of what lay ahead if he could not turn aside in time. All were populated with predators that pursued him relentlessly, hunters of a sort that lacked recognizable purpose or intent. They came at him in waves, and no matter where he fled or tried to hide, they meant to have him.

Dreams and nightmares. There was no recognizable connection between the one and the other, and he transitioned between light and dark visions with distressing unpredictability. He slept, but his sleep was not sound or restful. The strange mix left him plagued with anxiety over which would appear next and how he would deal with it. He sought to combat them by gaining a measure of control, but his efforts fragmented and failed. He sought to wake, swimming upward through the waters of his sleep toward the bright surface of waking, but the distance was too great. Each time he felt himself getting close, the nightmares would come and drag him down again.