The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

Inside, the room was round and dark save for a single, flameless lamp set in a raised stanchion at the chamber’s center. Heavy stone blocks encircled a mosaic floor in which runes had been carved in intricate patterns that suggested story panels. There was only the one door leading in and no windows. There were no openings in either the walls or floor. The ceiling domed away in shadowed darkness.

A tomb for the dead and their possessions, Shadea thought. A space where things were placed with a strong expectation that one day they would be forgotten.

She walked to the stanchion, stood with the heel of her right boot pressed against one edge of its square base and fitted into an invisible depression beneath, then walked straight ahead until she reached the wall. Placing the palms of both hands flat against the stone at waist height, she worked the tips of her fingers around until she found the hidden depressions in the stone, then pushed.

A heavy panel swung open on hidden hinges, revealing a deep, ink-black chamber.

Her smile said everything about her expectations for what waited within.

She entered without the use of fresh light, relying on the faint glow of the lamp behind her. Her eyes adjusted quickly, and she saw what she had come for. She walked over to a low pedestal set against one wall, opened the iron box sitting on top of it, and took out the velvet pouch that rested within. She handled it carefully, the way she might a deadly snake, taking care not to grip it too strongly but to balance it in the palms of her hands. Even more carefully still, she reached inside to extract what was hidden there.

Slowly, gingerly, she drew out the Stiehl.

It was the most deadly weapon in the world, a blade forged in the time of Faerie in the furnaces of the Grint Trolls. Infused with lethal strains of arcane fire magic, it could penetrate anything, no matter how thick or strong. Nothing could stand against it. It had been in the hands of the assassin Pe Ell in the time of the Shadowen and Walker Boh, and he had used it to kill the daughter of the King of the Silver River. The Druid had recovered it afterwards and hidden it here. No one had known where it was since. No one, but Grianne Ohmsford and now Shadea.

She held it by its handle, feeling the markings that signified its name where they were carved into the bone plates. The blade gleamed silver bright, its surface smooth and flawless. It had survived thousands of years without a mark. Grianne had kept it concealed for the same reasons as Walker Boh—it was too dangerous to reveal. It was an assassin’s weapon, a killer’s tool.

It belonged, Shadea told herself, in a killer’s hands, in an assassin’s sheath. It belonged in the hands of a master. She would see that it found its way there. She would see that it was put to the use for which it was intended. The lives it snuffed would be well spent.

She sighed. She wasn’t being evil, she told herself for a second time that afternoon. She was just being practical.

She put the Stiehl away, closed the chamber anew, and climbed out of Paranor’s dark cellars to the light above.





FIFTEEN


With the decision made to go in search of the tanequil, Ahren Elessedil arranged for horses to transport the party on the first leg of their journey, and within an hour they were mounted and riding out of Emberen. Seemingly unconcerned about its contents, the Druid didn’t even bother to close up his cottage, leaving everything pretty much the way it was. Pen had the feeling that the Druid wasn’t much attached to possessions and, in the tradition of Druids who did service in the field, thought them mostly superfluous. The boy didn’t pretend to understand this, having worked hard for everything he had, but he supposed that his own attachments were mostly the result of habit and not because he valued his belongings all that much. Still, he had to fight a strong urge to go back and lock up.

They rode south along the main roadway, stopping frequently to say good-bye to the villagers, Ahren making a point of telling everyone he spoke to that they would be gone for several weeks. Pen thought it odd that he would make the information public and was further confused when they departed in the wrong direction and a dozen miles outside the village turned not east toward the Charnals, but west.

When he finally gathered up courage enough to ask what they were doing, Ahren Elessedil smiled. “Confusing the enemy, I hope. If they come to Emberen, which I expect they will, the villagers will tell them we left heading south. If they track us that way, they will find that we have turned west. But they will lose our trail when we reach the Rill Song because we will leave the horses there and catch a barge downriver to the Innisbore and the inland port of Syioned. At Syioned, we will find an airship to take us where we really want to go.”

“An airship?” Pen asked.