The Scions of Shannara

He smiled faintly. “Sitting about in warehouses and basements isn’t what I had in mind. What is Padishar waiting around for?”


She shrugged. “What we all wait around for from time to time—that little voice buried somewhere deep inside that tells us what to do next. It might be intuition or it might be common sense or then again it might be the advent of circumstances beyond our control.” She gave him a wicked smile. “Is it speaking now to you?”

“Something certainly is.” He sat down next to her. “Why are you still here, Damson? Does Padishar keep you?”

She laughed. “Hardly. I come and go as I please. He knows I was not the one who betrayed him. Or you, I think.”

“Then why stay?”

She considered him thoughtfully for a moment. “Maybe I stay because you interest me,” she said at last. She paused as if she wanted to say more, but thought better of it. She smiled. “I have never met anyone who uses real magic. Just the pretend kind, like me.”

She reached up and deftly plucked a coin from behind his ear. It was carved from cherry wood. She handed it to him. It bore her likeness on one side and his on the other. He looked up at her in surprise. “That’s very good.”

“Thank you.” He thought she colored slightly. “You may keep it with the other for good luck.”

He tucked the coin into his pocket. They sat silent for a time, exchanging uncertain glances. “There isn’t much difference, you know, between your kind of magic and mine,” he said finally. “They both rely on illusion.”

She shook her head. “No, Par. You are wrong. One is an acquired skill, the other innate. Mine is learned and, once learned, has become all it can. Yours is constantly growing, and its lessons are limitless. Don’t you see? My magic is a trade, a way to make a living. Your magic is much more; it is a gift around which you must build your life.”

She smiled, but there was a hint of sadness in it. She stood up. “I have work to do. Finish your packing.” She moved past him and disappeared down the ladder.

The morning hours crawled past and still Padishar did not return. Par busied himself doing nothing, growing anxious for something—anything—to happen. Coll and Morgan drifted over from time to time, and he spoke to them of his intention to confront the outlaw chief. Neither seemed very optimistic about his chances.

The skies grew more threatening, the wind picking up until it made a rather mournful howl about the loose-fitting jambs and shutters of the old building they were housed in, but still it didn’t rain. Card games were played to pass the time and topics of conversation exhausted.

It was nearing midafternoon when Padishar returned. He slipped in through the front doors without a word, crossed the room to Par and motioned him to follow. He took the Valeman into a small office situated at the back of the main floor and shut the door behind them.

When they were alone, he seemed at a loss for words.

“I have been thinking rather carefully about what we should do,” he said finally. “Or, if you prefer, what we should not do. Any mistake we make now could be our last.”

He pulled Par over to a bench that had been shoved back against the wall and sat them both down. “There’s the problem of this traitor,” he said quietly. His eyes were bright and hard with something Par couldn’t read. “I was certain at first that it must be one of us. But it isn’t me or Damson. Damson is above suspicion. It isn’t you. It might be your brother; but it isn’t him either, is it?”

He made it a statement of fact rather than a question. Par shook his head in agreement.

“Or the Highlander.”

Par shook his head a second time.

“That leaves Ciba Blue, Stasas, and Drutt. Blue is likely dead; that means that if he’s the one, he was stupid enough to let himself get killed in the bargain. Doesn’t sound like Blue. And the other two have been with me almost from the first. It is inconceivable that either of them would betray me—whatever the price offered or the reason supplied. Their hatred of the Federation is nearly a match for my own.”

The muscles in his jaw tightened. “So perhaps it isn’t any of us after all. But who else could have discovered our plan? Do you see what I mean? Your friend the Highlander mentioned this morning something he had almost forgotten. When we first came into the city and went down to the market stalls, he thought he saw Hirehone. He thought then he was mistaken; now he wonders. Forgetting momentarily the fact that Hirehone held my life in his hands any number of times before this and did not betray me, how would he have gone about doing so now? No one, outside of Damson and those I brought with me, knew the where, when, how, or why of what we were about. Yet those Federation soldiers were waiting for us. They knew.”