The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

He looked into the eyes of the old man, then at Tagwen’s rough face, and then off into the night, where possibilities were still shaping themselves and dreams still held sway. He had never been put in a position where so much depended on a decision and the decision must be made so quickly.

Then, almost without thinking about it, he put aside his objections and concerns as secondary to his aunt’s needs. He stood staring down at the wooden deck of the pilot box for a moment, measuring the depth of his commitment. It all came down to the same thing, he supposed. If their positions were reversed, would his aunt do for him what he was being asked to do for her? Even without knowing her any better than he did, he was certain of the answer.

“All right,” he said softly, “I’ll go.”

He looked up again. The King of the Silver River nodded. “And you will come back again, Penderrin. I see it in your eyes, just as I saw it more than twenty years ago in your father’s.”

Pen took a deep breath, thinking that what was mirrored in his eyes was probably more on the order of bewilderment. So much had happened so quickly, and he was not sure yet that he understood it all or even that he ever would. He wished he had more confidence in himself, but he supposed you got that only by testing yourself against your doubts.

“Where has my aunt been imprisoned?” he asked the old man suddenly. “Where do I have to go to find her?”

The King of the Silver River went very still then, so still that at first it seemed as if he had been turned to stone and could not speak. He took a long time to consider the boy’s question, his ancient face a mask of conflicting emotions. The silence deepened and turned brittle with suspense.

The longer Pen waited for a response, the more certain he became that he would wish he hadn’t asked.

He was not mistaken.


When the King of the Silver River had gone, Penderrin slept, exhausted by the day’s ordeal. He woke again to sunshine and blue sky, to soft breezes blowing off the Rainbow Lake, and to birdsong and crickets. Tagwen was already hard at work, clearing away the debris from their landing. Pen joined the Dwarf in his efforts, neither of them saying much as they labored. They cut away the mast, then found a suitable tree from which to fashion a new one. It took them most of the day to shape it, then set it in place. By the time it was firmly attached to the cat, the sun had gone west and the shadows were lengthening.

They ate dinner on the deck of the airship, a patched-together meal of foodstuffs left aboard from an earlier outing, fresh water and foraged greens. Fish would have helped, but they would have had to eat it raw since neither was willing to risk a fire. They had not seen the Galaphile since the previous night, and they believed themselves safe from it there in the lands of the King of the Silver River, but there was no point in taking chances.

Dinner was almost finished before Pen spoke about the previous night. By then, he had spent the better part of the day thinking it through, repeating the words of the King of the Silver River in his mind, trying to make them seem real.

“Did it all happen the way I think it did, Tagwen?” he asked finally, almost afraid of what he was going to hear. “I didn’t imagine it?”

“Not unless I imagined it, too,” the Dwarf replied.

“Then I agreed to go find my aunt?”

“And me with you.”

Pen shook his head helplessly. “What have I done? I’m not up to this. I don’t even know where to make a start.”

Tagwen laughed softly. “I’ve been giving it some thought, since I saw how dazed you were last night. One of us needed to keep a clear head. You may have the means to secure this darkwand, but I have the means to look out for us. I think I know what we need to do first.”

“You do?” Pen didn’t bother to hide his surprise. “What?”

The Dwarf grinned and pointed toward the setting sun. “We go west, Penderrin, to the Elven village of Emberen.”





TEN


She awoke to the sound of weasel voices, raspy and sly, the words indistinguishable one from the other. The voices giggled and snickered, little taunts intended to disparage her, to make her feel vulnerable and weak. She listened to them from within layers of cotton that wrapped about her like a chrysalis. The voices hissed with laughter. She was a nameless corpse, they whispered, an empty shell from which the life had been leeched away, a body consigned to the earth’s dark breast for burial.

She fought against a sudden stab of panic. She was Grianne Ohmsford, she told herself in an act of reassurance. She was alive and well. She was only dreaming. She was asleep in her bed, and she remembered …

She drew a sharp, frightened breath, and her certainties were gone as quickly as the voices, disappeared like smoke.