The Scions of Shannara

Par slipped out of his cloak. “Wait for me here. Keep watch for the Shadowen.”


“Keep watch for them yourself,” Coll said bluntly, shrugging off his own cloak. “I’m going with you.”

“I’m going, too,” said Damson.

But Coll blocked her way instantly. “No, you’re not. Only one of us can go besides Par. Look about you, Damson. Look at where we are. We’re in a box, a trap. There is no way out of the Pit except through this door and no way out of the palace except back up the stairs and across the catwalk. The Mole can watch the catwalk, but he can’t watch this door at the same time. You have to do that.”

Damson started to object, but Coll cut her short. “Don’t argue, Damson. You know I’m right. I’ve listened to you when I should; this time you listen to me.”

“It doesn’t matter who listens to whom. I don’t want either of you going,” insisted Par sharply.

Coll ignored him, shifting his short sword in his belt until it was in front of him. “You don’t have any choice.”

“Why shouldn’t I be the one to go?” Damson demanded angrily.

“Because he’s my brother!” Coll’s voice cracked like a whip, and his rough features were hard. But when he spoke next, his voice was strangely soft. “It has to be me; it’s why I came in the first place. It’s why I’m here at all.”

Damson went still, frozen and voiceless. Her gaze shifted.

“All right,” she agreed, but her mouth was tight and angry as she said it. She turned away. “Mole, watch the catwalk.”

The little fellow was glancing at each of them in turn, a mix of uncertainty and bewilderment in his bright eyes. “Yes, lovely Damson,” he murmured and disappeared up the stairs.

Par started to say something more, but Coll took him by the shoulders and pushed him back up against the weathered door. Their eyes met and locked.

“Let’s not waste any more time arguing about this, huh?” Coll said. “Let’s just get it over with. You and me.”

Par tried to twist free, but Coll’s big hands were like iron clamps. He sagged back, frustrated. Coll released him. “Par,” he said, and the words were almost a plea. “I spoke the truth. I have to go.”

They faced each other in silence. Par found himself thinking of what they had come through to reach this point, of the hardships they bad endured. He wanted to tell Coll that it all meant something, that he loved him, that he was frightened for him now. He wanted to remind his brother about his duck feet, to warn him that duck feet were too big to sneak around in. He thought he might scream.

But, instead, he said simply, “I know.”

Then he moved to the heavy, weathered door, released its fastenings, and pulled on its worn handle. The door swung open, and the half-light and fog, the rancid smells and cloying chill, the hiss of swamp sounds, and the high, distant call of a solitary bird rushed in.

Par looked back at Damson Rhee. She nodded. That she would wait? That she understood? He didn’t know.

With Coll beside him, he stepped out into the Pit.





XXXI



Where was Teel?

Morgan Leah knelt hurriedly beside Steff, touched his face, and felt the chill of his friend’s skin through his fingers. Impulsively, he put his hands on Steff’s shoulders and gripped him, but Steff did not seem to feel it. Morgan took his hands away and rocked back on his heels. His eyes scanned the darkness about him, and shivered with something more than the cold. The question repeated itself in his mind, racing from corner to corner as if trying to hide, a dark whisper.

Where was Teel?

The possibilities paraded before him in his mind. Gone to get Steff a drink of water, something hot to eat, another blanket perhaps? Gone to look around, spooked from her sleep by one of those instincts or sixth-senses that kept you alive when you were constantly being hunted? Close by, about to return?

The possibilities shattered into broken pieces and disappeared. No. He knew the answer. She had gone into the secret tunnel. She had gone there to lead the soldiers of the Federation into the Jut from the rear. She was about to betray them one final time.

No one but Damson, Chandos, and I know the other way—now that Hirehone is dead.

That was what Padishar Creel had told him, speaking of the hidden way out, the tunnel—something Morgan had all but forgotten until now. He shivered at the clarity of the memory. If his reasoning was correct and the traitor was a Shadowen who had taken Hirehone’s identity to follow them to Tyrsis, then that meant the Shadowen had possession of Hirehone’s memories and knew of the tunnel as well.

And if the Shadowen was now Teel . . .

Morgan felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. It would take the Federation months to take the Jut by siege. But what if the siege was nothing more than a decoy? What if the Creeper itself had been, even in failing, just a decoy? What if the Federation’s intent from the beginning, was to take the Jut from within, by betrayal once again, through the tunnel that was to have been the outlaws’ escape?