The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

“I guess we’re ready,” he said. “Where are the secret passageways that lead to my sister’s sleeping chamber?”


Tagwen stared at him with a stricken look. “I have no idea. She never showed me.” He glanced helplessly at Rue and back again to Bek. “Can’t you find them with your magic?”

Rue Meridian rolled her eyes.


Shadea a’Ru sat at a desk in her new quarters, which were not far down the hallway from the sleeping chamber she had abandoned when she and Traunt Rowan and Pyson Wence had set the triagenel in place. At the sound of the knock on her door, she looked up guardedly.

Who is it? she started to ask, and then simply said, “Come.”

The door opened and Traunt Rowan stepped through. “We may have a new problem, Shadea.”

She stared at him in a way that suggested she did not want to hear about it. He met her gaze squarely. He had always been better able to do so than the others. “What sort of problem?” she said.

He stood deferentially to one side, knowing his place. “The Gnome Hunters we sent to dispose of the Elessedil girl have disappeared. All of them. Without a trace.”

She turned in her chair to face him. “And the girl?”

“Disappeared, as well. The Elfstones, too. We wouldn’t have found out at all except that Pyson went back to check with the man he had chosen to lead the squad. He couldn’t be found. Further inquiries revealed that the entire squad was gone. It’s impossible at this point to say what’s happened. Pyson is conducting a search of the Keep, combing all of its passageways and courtyards, every inch. He enlisted more than a hundred of his Gnome Hunters to help.”

She thought it through. “But there is no sign of the girl?” She paused. “Has there been any unexplained usage of magic within these walls?”

“Nothing that’s been reported.”

“Go up to the cold room and see if there has been any disturbance of the scrye waters. Anything at all. Especially here at Paranor. Anything. Make sure you speak with everyone who has kept watch for the last twenty-four hours.” Her finger came up, pointing at him. “Don’t let them lie to you.”

She got to her feet. “If that girl escaped, she might try to go back to the sleeping chamber.”

But Traunt Rowan was already shaking his head. “No, I’ve been there already. I stood outside the door and checked to see if the triagenel was still in place. It was. It has not been disturbed in any way. If she’s alive, I don’t think that is where she is.”

“Perhaps she’s gone to Arborlon for help. But how did she escape a squad of Gnome Hunters when she was bound and gagged? She doesn’t have the magic for that! She’s just a girl!”

“Well, maybe she didn’t escape. Maybe there’s another explanation.”

She looked at him as if he were an idiot. “If the Gnomes are missing, she’s escaped. But we can deal with that.” She gestured toward the door. “Go. See what the watch in the cold room has to say. Then come tell me.”

He went out the door without a word. She stood looking after him a moment, considering what she should do. She would check the triagenel herself, of course. She would not rely on him. Her own magic was the more powerful and the more capable; it would give a more sensitive reading. In any case, she no longer cared to rely on anyone else in matters of importance—even her confederates. Maybe especially her confederates. They hadn’t shown her anything yet that suggested she should rely on them.

Nor had anyone else, she reminded herself, thinking suddenly of Iridia.

She paused a moment to ponder the disappearance of the assassins she had dispatched to Arishaig to dispose of the sorceress. Those Gnomes had vanished as well, which would suggest that they had failed. Iridia was dangerous, the most capable of those who had conspired with her to lock Grianne Ohmsford within the Forbidding, but the men sent to kill her should have been equal to the task.

She shook her head. Sooner or later, she would have to deal with Iridia herself. Perhaps Sen Dunsidan, too. It might be better if she rid herself of both of them. Let the Federation choose a new Prime Minister. She would take her chances. Sen Dunsidan was becoming more trouble than he was worth.

For the moment, however, she needed to find out if the Elessedil girl was still inside Paranor’s walls.

Pulling her dark robes close about her, she went out the door and down the hall toward the Ard Rhys’s sleeping chambers.