The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

He almost added, if they can find a way back, but he caught himself just in time. Rue didn’t need to hear him saying anything about the odds. She understood them well enough.

“It is more complicated than that,” Trefen Morys interjected quickly. “We have to find a way to be inside the sleeping chamber at just the right time. We have to devise a way of knowing exactly when Pen and my mistress will reappear. If we don’t choose the right moment, Shadea and her allies will find us out.”

The little company went silent, dismayed at the prospect of being stopped after they had come so far and endured so much. But the task the young Druid had just described seemed impossible.

Bek turned to Tagwen. “The King of the Silver River said that the keys to helping Pen were in the hands of his companions—Kermadec, Khyber Elessedil, and yourself. Maybe we should start there. Can you think what he might have been talking about? Is there some special kind of help that you can give us?”

Tagwen considered the question. “Well, there is one possibility,” he said after a moment. “I know a way into Paranor using tunnels that run beneath the bluff to the furnace room and continue all through the walls of the Keep. The Ard Rhys showed them to me once, a maze of passages. She used magic to block those leading to her rooms, but perhaps your own magic can undo hers.”

“So we can reach the sleeping chamber unseen if I can remove my sister’s safeguards?” Bek asked.

The Dwarf nodded rather reluctantly. “Perhaps. If Shadea hasn’t discovered the tunnels as well and set traps of her own.”

“We’ll have to risk it,” Bek declared at once. “We’ve risked worse already to get where we are. Kermadec, what of you?”

The Rock Troll knotted his great hands and looked at Atalan. “Brother, I think the Trolls need to show the Four Lands where we stand in this business. Marching against the Urdas is a waste of time and purpose. We need to march on Paranor and the Druids instead. They attacked Taupo Rough and drove our people out. The attack was unprovoked. Dismissing the Troll guard while it was still in service to the Ard Rhys is insult enough, although we could have endured it. But attacking our home is beyond acceptable. Perhaps we should repay their visit with one of our own.”

Atalan’s response was a slow, wicked grin. “Let’s pull down the walls around their ears!”

“Or at least pull the wool over their eyes—a distraction to give you time to get into place.” Kermadec glanced at the others. “Several thousand Rock Trolls gathered at the gates will be something that not even the Druids can ignore. If we must, we will come through those gates to your aid, but at the very least we will keep those snakes pinned down within their own fortress for the time it takes for our mistress to deal with them as she chooses.”

“And deal with them she will, you may be sure,” Tagwen grunted, looking almost happy.

“That leaves Khyber Elessedil,” Bellizen said. “What of her?”

“Her purpose seems easier to divine,” Bek responded quickly. “She carries the Elfstones given her by Ahren Elessedil. They are seeking-stones, and I think finding the demon that has crossed over from the Forbidding will be our first order of business after my sister returns. The Elfstones will make that task much easier.”

He looked from face to face in the darkness. “We have at least the beginnings of a plan. I think that is the best we can hope for.”

“What I don’t understand,” Rue declared suddenly, “is why the King of the Silver River didn’t make this business of the keys and the companions clearer to you in your dream, Bek. He could have told you what purpose Kermadec and Tagwen and Khyber Elessedil were to serve. Why didn’t he do that?”

“Faerie creatures and shades are secretive and seldom speak the whole truth,” Bellizen ventured.

But Bek shook his head. “I think it is something else. I think we were given a starting point, but nothing more. The future remains undecided. Things may change as events unfold, and we must be ready to change with them. If the King of the Silver River had told me in my dream exactly what the keys were, we might have become too reliant on his words. As it is, we remain uncertain that we have it right. He wants that. He wants us to find our own way. He wants us to understand that the way is not yet determined.”

There was a long silence as the others contemplated his words. They knew where they must go and what they must do, but they still did not know how they would accomplish it. The future was a mystery. It was the way the world had always worked. It was the way it would work here.

“We must leave at once,” Tagwen declared. “We have no idea how much time remains before the Ard Rhys and young Penderrin cross back.”