The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

While the airship hovered midway across the valley, Bek used the wishsong to seek out some sign of Pen or his companions. He had learned the trick from his sister years earlier. As the Ilse Witch, she had used the wishsong to track him. Later, on the long voyage home, she had showed him how. He would see if it could be made to work the same way for him.

It was something of a gamble to do so. Any use of his magic would alert Shadea and her Druids to their presence and remove any doubt about where they were. On the other hand, she would know already where they were going and what they were trying to do, so he really wasn’t giving all that much away. And if she had discovered that Pen was inside the Forbidding, she might have lost all interest in pursuing them anyway. Whatever the case, without the use of the wishsong they had no way of knowing where to go.

Eyes closed for better concentration, he sang the magic, slow and smooth, like a carpet being spread across the valley floor, searching for traces of passage. He found several, all of them more than a week old and none distinct enough to identify. Frustrated, he spread his net a little wider, reaching deeper into the peaks ahead, into the mountains of the Klu that fronted the huge forests of the Inkrim.

There, far beyond anywhere he could see, he found traces of his son, tiny beacons in the ether. But the traces were unlike anything he had ever come across before, and for a moment he didn’t trust what the wishsong was telling him. Still, his certainty that it was Penderrin and not someone else was so strong that he could not ignore it.

He broke off his efforts, the wishsong dying into silence. His breathing quieted and his eyes opened once more.

“I found him,” he said. “Traces of him, anyway. Deeper into the mountains ahead, east.” He paused, looking now at Rue. “But something’s wrong. What I found wasn’t familiar to me; it wasn’t what I know of Pen. What I found of his passing was tinged with magic.”

She stared at him. “Magic? Whose magic?”

“His own.”

She shook her head. “That isn’t possible. He doesn’t have any magic. He’s never had any magic. We both know that.”

He held her gaze. “Nevertheless.”

“You must be mistaken. You have to be.”

He could tell from the way she said it that she needed him to be wrong, that she was frightened at the prospect that the Ohmsford heritage might have been passed on to her son after all. He could discern her thinking. She had believed Pen safely removed from the wishsong’s influence, the bloodline dying out with Bek. What if she had been mistaken? What if the magic had simply lain dormant? It had done so with Bek. Was it so strange that it should do so with his son, as well?

“I don’t think we can decide about this until we talk to Pen,” he said carefully. “What matters is that I feel certain I’ve found his route of passage. We can track him now.”

“What if what you’ve found is his passage coming out, rather than going in?” Trefen Morys asked suddenly.

It was an uncomfortable thought. There was no way to determine the answer from where they stood. There might not be a way to determine the answer once they reached the source. It might be a long, dangerous journey to their destination, and the journey might well yield nothing.

But it was all they had to work with. It was the only lead they had been given.

“I think we have to try following it for a time, at least,” Bek offered, looking to Rue for support.

His wife studied him, her fine, clear features masking what she was feeling, keeping hidden the wash of doubts and fears he knew she must be experiencing. She stayed silent for a long time, considering. Then she nodded. “Bek is right. We have to try.”

They turned Swift Sure’s bow toward the Klu and flew east for the remainder of the day into peaks wrapped in storm clouds and layers of mist, buffeted by heavy winds. Swift Sure was battered and tossed and her occupants thrown from side to side. Bek was sent below to help protect his wounds, and the other three strapped on safety harnesses while on deck. By the end of the day, all three were drenched and freezing, their bodies aching and their minds numb from the effort of holding course and staying aloft. Snow was flying all about them in thick gusts, threatening whiteouts at every turn, cloaking cliff walls and passages alike so that the way forward remained an ever-changing mystery.

As darkness approached, Rue Meridian began to despair. If they did not get clear of the mountains quickly, she would have to set down, and there was nowhere for her to do that. Flying blind at night could have only one result. She called Bek back up on deck and had him use the wishsong again, searching for a way to go. But the magic failed Bek this time, refusing to give up anything at all that would help, leaving them adrift and at risk.