He stared at them in confusion and surprise. The dancing continued for a few seconds more, and then slowed. He furrowed his brow. His voice had disturbed them. They had become more active because he had shouted at the dragon.
He found himself thinking again about how the runes continued to glow even while he was asleep and paying no attention to the staff at all. He had thought at first that the runes only brightened when they were responding to his thoughts. But that didn’t seem to be the case. Hadn’t been the case ever. From the moment he had encountered the dragon, the runes had acted independently of anything he had done, keeping the monster transfixed and at bay.
Even while he was sleeping.
Why would they do that?
They would do it, he thought suddenly, because the darkwand was sentient. The tanequil had given him a living piece of itself. That was what had enabled him to carve the runes without seeing what he was doing. That was what had transported him from the Four Lands into the Forbidding. It knew to use the runes to charm the dragon, to mesmerize it so that it would not attack Pen. Just as it knew to guide him to the Ard Rhys, it knew to protect him.
But why had the runes responded to his voice?
Shades!
Because it was a thing of magic and it would always respond to other magic. His magic. Not his little magic, his ability to read the actions and behavior of other creatures in an effort to communicate with them. Not the magic he had grown up with and kept secret even from his parents because he never thought it mattered. No, not that magic.
Another magic. The wishsong magic.
Like father, like son.
He could scarcely believe it. He had always understood there was a possibility of his inheriting such magic. But he had thought that possibility long past, faded with the passing of the years. He was too old. If it was going to happen, it would have happened earlier.
Yet it hadn’t happened to his father, either, until he was a few years older than Pen was now. So it was possible that history was repeating itself. The blood heritage was a part of his past. But perhaps it was also a part of his future, its seeds locked deep inside him. He knew that his small communicative magic was born of it, even if it wasn’t as powerful.
And now, for reasons he didn’t understand, the wishsong had surfaced in him as it had surfaced twenty years earlier in his father. It had awakened in his voice and given him a way to connect to the magic of the darkwand.
Except, he thought excitedly, he did understand the reasons for its emergence. The darkwand had awakened the wishsong. His joining to the staff in the carving of its intricate web of runes had brought the magic to life.
He looked into the distance, thinking that he was being foolish, that he had no reason to believe any of his conclusions. He glanced down at the staff, at the softly glowing runes, their patterns changing endlessly, dancing hypnotically across the darkened, burnished wood. He had no proof that the wishsong’s magic was what had stirred those runes or, even if it had, that he could implement it in any useful way.
But where was the harm in trying to find out?
He began to hum, soft and steady, shifting tones and pitches, trying anything and everything. He kept at it, not knowing exactly what he was doing, just testing to see if anything he tried would make a difference. The response from the runes was immediate. They throbbed and pulsed, the glow shifting from rune to rune and from row to row, skipping here and there as if a thing alive. Patterns formed and were replaced almost quicker than the eye could follow, a kaleidoscope of brilliant images.
The dragon lifted its head, fascinated.
Pen changed from humming to stringing together words, not singing any specific song, just phrases that seemed to go together, seeking ways to make the runes do other things. But the runes just kept shifting about as they chose with little regard to anything he did. They seemed to respond only to sound and not to specific words or meanings. Frustrated, unable to see how this was helping anything, he tightened his resolve, burrowed down inside himself, and gave a harder push to what he was doing.
Get away from me, he sang in a dozen different ways. Go far, far away from me.
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