The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

“She wishes to be of service to you,” the speaker replied. “She wishes to present you with a gift that will be of use in negotiating with the Elves. She knows of the disaster on the Prekkendorran and wishes to mitigate the consequences. May I come over and present it?”


The Moric had no use for such a gift, but it understood that it could not afford to cast aside the offer out of hand. To do so would look suspicious. Worse, it would suggest that its motives in coming to the Westland were not peaceful. Shadea had allied herself and the Druids with Sen Dunsidan and the Federation. It made sense that she would want to aid the Prime Minister in his efforts at resolving the Federation dispute with the Free-born. She was as much at risk in this business as he was. The Moric wondered fleetingly how she had found out about where Sen Dunsidan was going and why, but it assumed she had spies at Arishaig who told her everything.

The Moric steeled itself. It would have to suppress its impulses and act as Sen Dunsidan would. This would only take a few minutes, and then it could be on its way. Better to placate the Druids than to irritate them.

“Let them board, Captain,” it said to the Zolomach’s commander. “But watch them closely in the event this is something other than what it seems.”

The Captain nodded wordlessly, and the Moric climbed down from the pilot box and walked over to the railing to await its visitors.


It won’t work, Pen kept thinking. It will never work.

But it did. He could scarcely believe it when the Zolomach’s Captain ran up the line of signal pennants that invited the Druids aboard. He had been convinced that permission would be refused and they would be turned away without a second thought. But his father, who had conceived of the plan during the night and worked the details through carefully with his mother, had assured them all that the demon would relent. In its guise as Sen Dunsidan, it would be forced to do what Sen Dunsidan would do. It might want to turn them away, but it would realize that to do so would create suspicion and risk disruption of its efforts to reach the Ellcrys. Its overriding goal was to reach Arborlon as quickly as possible, Bek reminded them. It would do whatever was necessary to make that happen.

Under his father’s steady hand, Swift Sure eased closer to the Zolomach, and lines were thrown from the latter to the former and secured by Pen to the anchor stanchions so that the two vessels were joined. Pen glanced up and down at the soldiers lining the other ship’s railings and tried to reassure himself that they didn’t matter, that the plan would work out as his father intended. His mother and Khyber, cloaked in the Druid robes his mother had stolen from Paranor and stowed aboard some weeks earlier, stood together at the bow, waiting patiently. They kept their hoods up and their features concealed. Sen Dunsidan didn’t know any of them by sight save Tagwen, who was hiding belowdecks, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious.

As he finished tying off the lines, Pen went over in his mind one last time the details of what was about to happen. If they were mistaken in any way about how the darkwand would react or if his aunt had guessed wrong about what he needed to do or, worst of all, if the King of the Silver River had deceived his father in his fever dream, then none of them were likely to return from the Zolomach alive. But it was mostly up to him to make the plan succeed, and it was his own judgment that was likely to determine how things turned out.

His mother and Khyber were moving along the railing toward the ramp that had been lowered from the Zolomach to allow them to board. Unbidden, he fell into step behind them, carrying the darkwand in his right hand, the almost black, rune-carved surface gleaming in the sunlight. He sensed Sen Dunsidan’s gaze—his demon’s gaze—drawn to it. Cold and dead as deep winter, those blue eyes flared with sudden interest, and Pen felt a chill run up and down his spine.

Fighting down his repulsion and fear, he took a deep, steadying breath and stepped up onto the ramp behind his mother and Khyber as they walked slowly across to the other vessel. His father stood silently in the pilot box, showing no particular interest in the proceedings, a mercenary paid to do his job. But he would have already summoned the magic of the wishsong and be holding it at his fingertips. He would be watching carefully for any sign of treachery.