It was bad enough that she did not have a clear idea of where she was so that she might have some sense of which direction to go. It was much worse that she had no idea how to reach her destination without being seen. She could find a way to disguise herself, she supposed, just as she had done when she had freed Pen. But that was risky and, besides, even if she got that far the sleeping chamber would be heavily guarded.
Trying to decide where to begin, she considered her alternatives for a moment, but the task was hopeless. Everything she thought about trying was too dangerous. Once they found the dead Gnome Hunters, they would be looking for her anyway. Perhaps they already were. She needed to disappear, to become invisible.
She pondered the idea. There were secret passageways in the walls of Paranor. Ahren had told her so once. The Keep was honeycombed with them. The Druids had used them to reach one another when they wished their conferences kept secret. The Ard Rhys had used them from time to time, as well, to slip from her chamber without being seen when need or discretion warranted it.
If she could find a way into those …
She would be lost all over again, she finished dismally.
Unless …
Her mind raced. Unless she had a way to keep from getting lost.
Her hand strayed to the pocket in her tunic where the Elfstones were tucked away. The Elfstones could keep her from getting lost. They could show her a way into the sleeping chamber, just as they had shown Ahren the way to Stridegate and the tanequil.
She was suddenly excited, the aches and pains and hunger forgotten. But then she remembered that use of magic as powerful as the Elfstones was likely to be detected by the very people she was trying to avoid. It was the reason she had tried so hard not to use the Stones on the journey into the Charnals. Using them in the Druid’s Keep, right beneath their noses, would be madness. Besides, they thought the Elfstones destroyed, thrown into the furnace along with her body. Any release of the magic risked revealing that she was still alive.
Or did it?
If the Elfstones had been thrown into the furnace, would the intense heat and pressure destroy them? Would it serve to release the magic in doing so? No one knew, she suspected. There were no other Elfstones save the ones she carried, and little was known about their properties. It might well be that their destruction would unlock their magic in the same way as a user’s summoning.
Anyway, what other choice did she have?
She wondered suddenly how long she had been asleep. Did they know yet that she had escaped? Or did they think her dead and the Elfstones dead with her?
She rose and left the storage room, slipping cautiously through the door, and went back down the passageways of the Keep toward the furnace chamber. She picked up a torch on the way to provide her with the light she needed. She was hurrying by then, anxious to discover if her idea had a chance of working. It all depended on how much time had passed and what had happened in the interim. She moved quietly, listening for voices, for sounds that would indicate the bodies of the dead men had been discovered, that her deception was unworkable. But the passageways were silent and empty, and when she reached the place where the first two Gnomes had died, she found their bodies untouched. Farther down, within the furnace room itself, she found the third, as well. No one had missed them yet. No one had come looking.
She still had a chance.
One by one, she dragged the dead men to the edge of the fire pit and shoved them in. It would not conceal the struggle or the shedding of blood, but it would make it harder for those who eventually came looking to determine exactly what had happened. It might give her a measure of time and distance from discovery. She had to hope so because it was all she had to work with.
Exhausted from her efforts, she sat down with her back against the railing and took out the Elfstones. She had to try to use them, even if the release of the magic alerted Shadea and the other rebel Druids. She had to hope that they would register the source of the magic as the furnace room and attribute its presence to the destruction of the Stones in the fire.
She shook her head. She wished she had a better way. But she was stuck with things as they were, and there was no point wishing for something she couldn’t have.
She poured the Elfstones out of their pouch and into the palm of her hand, studying them a moment. Then she closed her fingers tightly about them, held up her hand, and summoned the magic.
The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy
Terry Brooks's books
- Alanna The First Adventure
- Alone The Girl in the Box
- Asgoleth the Warrior
- Awakening the Fire
- Between the Lives
- Black Feathers
- Bless The Beauty
- By the Sword
- In the Arms of Stone Angels
- Knights The Eye of Divinity
- Knights The Hand of Tharnin
- Knights The Heart of Shadows
- Mind the Gap
- Omega The Girl in the Box
- On the Edge of Humanity
- The Alchemist in the Shadows
- Possessing the Grimstone
- The Steel Remains
- The 13th Horseman
- The Age Atomic
- The Alchemaster's Apprentice
- The Alchemy of Stone
- The Ambassador's Mission
- The Anvil of the World
- The Apothecary
- The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf
- The Bible Repairman and Other Stories
- The Black Lung Captain
- The Black Prism
- The Blue Door
- The Bone House
- The Book of Doom
- The Breaking
- The Cadet of Tildor
- The Cavalier
- The Circle (Hammer)
- The Claws of Evil
- The Concrete Grove
- The Conduit The Gryphon Series
- The Cry of the Icemark
- The Dark
- The Dark Rider
- The Dark Thorn
- The Dead of Winter
- The Devil's Kiss
- The Devil's Looking-Glass
- The Devil's Pay (Dogs of War)
- The Door to Lost Pages
- The Dress
- The Emperor of All Things
- The Emperors Knife
- The End of the World
- The Eternal War
- The Executioness
- The Exiled Blade (The Assassini)
- The Fate of the Dwarves
- The Fate of the Muse
- The Frozen Moon
- The Garden of Stones
- The Gate Thief
- The Gates
- The Ghoul Next Door
- The Gilded Age
- The Godling Chronicles The Shadow of God
- The Guest & The Change
- The Guidance
- The High-Wizard's Hunt
- The Holders
- The Honey Witch
- The House of Yeel
- The Lies of Locke Lamora
- The Living Curse
- The Living End
- The Magic Shop
- The Magicians of Night
- The Magnolia League
- The Marenon Chronicles Collection
- The Marquis (The 13th Floor)
- The Mermaid's Mirror
- The Merman and the Moon Forgotten
- The Original Sin
- The Pearl of the Soul of the World
- The People's Will
- The Prophecy (The Guardians)
- The Reaping
- The Rebel Prince
- The Reunited
- The Rithmatist
- The_River_Kings_Road
- The Rush (The Siren Series)
- The Savage Blue
- The Scar-Crow Men
- The Science of Discworld IV Judgement Da
- The Scourge (A.G. Henley)
- The Sentinel Mage
- The Serpent in the Stone
- The Serpent Sea
- The Shadow Cats
- The Slither Sisters
- The Song of Andiene