Brooks, Terry - The Voyage of Jerle Shannara - 2 - Antrax

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ONE
Grianne Ohmsford was six years old on the last day of her childhood. She was
small for her age and lacked unusual strength of body or extraordinary life
experience and was not therefore particularly well prepared for growing up all
at once. She had lived the whole of her life on the eastern fringes of the Rabb
Plains, a sheltered child in a sheltered home, the eldest of two born to Araden
and Biornlief Ohmsford, he a scribe and teacher, she a housewife. People came
and went from their home as if it were an inn, students of her father, clients
drawing on the benefit of his skills, travelers from all over the Four Lands.
But she herself had never been anywhere and was only just beginning to
understand how much of the world she knew nothing about when everything she did
know was taken from her.
While she was unremarkable in appearance and there was nothing about her on the
surface of things that would suggest she could survive any sort of life-altering
trauma, the truth of the matter was that she was strong and able in unexpected
ways. Some of this showed in her startling blue eyes, which pinned you with
their directness and pierced you through to your soul. Strangers who made the
mistake of staring into them found themselves glancing quickly away. She did not
speak to these men and women or seem to take anything away from her encounters,
but she left them with a sense of having given something up anyway. Wandering
her home and yard, long dark hair hanging loose, a waif seemingly at a loss for
something to do or somewhere to go, or just sitting alone in a corner while the
adults talked among themselves, she claimed her own space and kept it inviolate.
She was tough-minded, as well, a stubborn and intractable child who once her
mind was set on something refused to let it be changed. For a time her parents
could do so by virtue of their relationship and the usual threats and
enticements, but eventually they found themselves incapable of influencing her.
She seemed to find her identity in making a stand on matters, by holding forth
in challenge and accepting whatever came her way as a result. Frequently it was
a stern lecture and banishment to her room, but often it was simply denial of
something others thought would benefit her. Whatever the case, she did not seem
to mind the consequences and was more apt to be bothered by capitulation to
their wishes.
But at the core of everything was her heritage, which manifested itself in ways
that hadn't been apparent for generations. She knew early on that she was not
like her parents or their friends or anyone else she knew. She was a throwback
to the most famous members of her family-to Brin and Jair and Par and Coll
Ohmsford, to whom she could directly trace her ancestry. Her parents explained
it to her early on, almost as soon as her talent revealed itself. She was born
with the magic of the wishsong, a latent power that surfaced in the Ohmsford
family bloodline only once in every four or five generations. Wish for it, sing
for it, and it would come to pass. Anything was possible. The wishsong hadn't
been present in an Ohmsford in her parents' lifetimes, and so neither of them
had any firsthand experience with how it worked. But they knew the stories, had
been told them repeatedly by their own parents, the tales of the magic carried
down from the time of the great Queen Wren, another of their ancestors. So they
knew enough to recognize what it meant when their child could bend the stalks of
flowers and turn aside an angry dog simply by singing.
Her use of the wishsong was rudimentary and undisciplined at first, and she did
not understand that it was special. In her child's mind, it seemed reasonable
that everyone would possess it. Her parents worked to help her realize its
worth, to harness its power, and to learn to keep it secret from others. Grianne
was a smart girl, and she understood quickly what it meant to have something
others would covet or fear if they knew she possessed it. She listened to her
parents about this, although she paid less attention to their warnings about the
ways it should be used and the purposes to which it should be put. She knew
enough to show them what they expected of her and to hide from them what they
did not.
So on the last day of her childhood she had already come to terms with having
use of the magic. She had constructed defenses to its demands and subterfuges to
her parents' refusals to let her fully test its limits. Wrapped in the armor of
her strong-minded determination and stubborn insistence, she had built a
fortress in which she wielded the wishsong with a sense of impunity. Her child's
world was already more complex and devious than that of many adults, and she was
learning the importance of never giving away everything of who and what she was.
It was her gift of magic and her understanding of its workings that saved her.
At the same time, and through no fault of her own, it was what doomed her
parents and younger brother.
She knew there was something wrong with her child's world some weeks before that
last day. It manifested itself in small ways, things that her parents and others
could not readily detect. There she was safely away, outside in the pale dawn
light, she would run the five miles to the next closest home and return with
help for her brother.
She heard the black-cloaked forms searching for her as she hurried along a short
passageway to a cellar door that led directly outside. Outside, the door was
concealed by bushes and seldom used, it was not likely they would think to find
her there. If they did, they would be sorry. She already knew the sort of damage
the wishsong could cause. She was a child, but she was not helpless. She blinked
away her tears and set her jaw. They would find that out one day. They would
find that out when she hurt them the same way they were hurting her.
Then she was through the door and outside in the brightening dawn light,
crouched in the bushes. Smoke swirled about her in dark clouds, and she felt the
heat of the fire as it climbed the walls of her home. Everything was being taken
from her, she thought in despair. Everything that mattered.
A sudden movement to one side drew her attention. When she turned to look, a
hand wrapped in a foul-smelling cloth closed over her face and sent her
spiraling downward into blackness.
When she awoke, she was bound, gagged, and blindfolded, and she could not tell
where she was or who held her captive or even if it was day or night. She was
carried over a thick shoulder like a sack of wheat, but her captors did not
speak. There were more than one; she could hear their footsteps, heavy and
certain. She could hear their breathing. She thought about her home and parents.
She thought about her brother. The tears came anew, and she began to sob. She
had failed them all.
She was carried for a long time, then laid upon the ground and left alone. She
squirmed in an effort to free herself, but the bonds were too tightly knotted.
She was hungry and thirsty, and a cold desperation was creeping through her.
There could be only one reason she had been taken captive, one reason she was
needed when her parents and brother were not. Her wishsong. She was alive and
they were dead because of her legacy. She was the one with the magic. She was
the one who was special. Special enough that her family was killed so that she
could be stolen away. Special enough to cause everything she loved and cared for
to be taken from her.
There was a commotion not long after that, sudden and unexpected, filled with
new sounds of battle and angry cries. They seemed to be coming from all around
her. Then she was snatched from the ground and carried off, leaving the sounds
behind. The one who carried her now cradled her while running, holding her
close, as if to soothe her fear and desperation. She curled into her rescuer's
arms, burrowed as if stricken, for such was the depth of her need.
When they were alone in a silent place, the bonds and gag and blindfold were
removed. She sat up and found herself facing a big man wrapped in black robes, a
man who was not entirely human, his face scaly and mottled like a snake's, his
fingers ending in claws, and his eyes lidless slits. She caught her breath and
shrank from him, but he did not move away in response.
"You are safe now, little one," he whispered. "Safe from those who would harm
you, from the Dark Uncle and his kind."
She did not know whom he was talking about. She looked around guardedly. They
were crouched in a forest, the trees stark sentinels on all sides, their
branches confining amid a sea of sunshine that dappled the woodland earth like
gold dust. There was no one else around, and nothing of what she saw looked
familiar.
"There is no reason to be afraid of me," the other said. "Are you frightened by
how I look?"
She nodded warily, swallowing against the dryness in her throat.
He handed her a water skin, and she drank gratefully. "Do not be afraid. I am of
mixed breed, both Man and Mwellret, little one. I look scary, but I am your
friend. I was the one who saved you from those others. From the Dark Uncle and
his shape-shifters."
That was twice he had mentioned the Dark Uncle. "Who is he?" she asked. "Is he
the one who hurt us?"
"He is a Druid. Walker is his name. He is the one who attacked your home and
killed your parents and your brother." The reptilian eyes fixed on her. "Think
back. You will remember seeing his face."
To her surprise, she did. She saw it clearly, a glimpse of it as it passed a
window in the thin dawn light, dusky skin and black beard, eyes so piercing they
stripped you bare, dark brow creased with frown lines. She saw him, knew him for
her enemy, and felt a rage of such intensity she thought she might burn from the
inside out.
Then she was crying, thinking of her parents and her brother, of her home and
her lost world. The man across from her drew her gently into his arms and held
her close.
"You cannot go back," he told her. "They will be searching for you. They will
never give up while they think you are alive."
She nodded into his shoulder. "I hate them," she said in a thin, sharp wail.
"Yes, I know," he whispered. "You are right to hate them." His rough, guttural
voice tightened. "But listen to me, little one. I am the Morgawr. I am your
father and mother now. I am your family. I will help you to find a way to gain
revenge for what has been taken from you. I will teach you to ward yourself
against everything that might hurt you. I will teach you to be strong."
He whisked her away, lifting her as if she weighed nothing, and carried her
deeper into the woods to where a giant bird waited. He called the bird a Shrike,
and she flew on its back with him to another part of the Four Lands, one dark
and solitary and empty of sound and life. He cared for her as he said he would,
trained her in mind and body, and kept her safe. He told her more of the Druid
Walker, of his scheming and his hunger for power, of his long-sought goal of
dominance over all the Races in all the lands. He showed her images of the Druid
and his black-cloaked servants, and he kept her anger fired and alive within her
child's breast.
"Never forget what he has stolen from you," he would repeat. "Never forget what
you are owed for his betrayal."
After a time he began to teach her to use the wishsong as a weapon against which
no one could stand-not once she had mastered it and brought it under her
control, not once she had made it so much a part of her that its use seemed
second nature. He taught her that even a slight change in pitch or tone could
alter health to sickness and life to death. A Druid had such power, he told her.
The Druid Walker in particular. She must learn to be a match for him. She must
learn to use her magic to overcome his.
After a while she thought no longer of her parents and her brother, whom she
knew to be dead and lost to her forever; they were no more than bones buried in
the earth, a part of a past forever lost, of a childhood erased in a single day.
She gave herself over to her new life and to her mentor, her teacher, and her
friend. The Morgawr was all those while she grew through adolescence, all those
and much more. He was the shaper of her thinking and the navigator of her life.
He was the inspiration for her magic's purpose and the keeper of her dreams of
righting the wrongs she had suffered.
He called her his little Ilse Witch, and she took the name for her own. She
buried her given name with her past, and she never used it again.
TWO
Her memories of the past, already faded and tattered, fell away in an instant's
time as she stood in a woodland clearing a thousand miles from her lost home and
confronted the boy who claimed he was her brother.
"Grianne, it's Bek," he insisted. "Don't you remember?" She remembered
everything, of course, although no longer as clearly and sharply, no longer as
painfully. She remembered, but she refused to believe that her memories could be
brought to life with such painful clarity after so many years. She hadn't heard
her name spoken in all that time, hadn't spoken it herself, had barely even
thought of it. She was the Ilse Witch, and that name defined who and what she
was, and not the other. The other was for when she had achieved her revenge over
the Druid, for when she had gained sufficient recognition and power that when it
was spoken next, it would never again be forgotten by anyone.
But here was this slip of a boy speaking it now, daring to suggest that he had a
right to do so. She stared at him in disbelief and smoldering anger. Could he
really be her brother? Could he be Bek, alive in spite of what she had believed
for so long? Was it possible? She tried to make sense of the idea, to find a way
to address it, to form words to speak in response. But everything she thought to
say or do was jumbled and incoherent, refusing to be organized in a useful way.
Everything froze as if chained and locked, leaving her so frustrated with her
inability to act that she could barely keep herself from screaming.
"No!" she shouted finally. A single word, spoken like an oath offered up against
demon spawn, it escaped her lips when nothing else dared.
"Grianne," he said, more softly now.
She saw the mop of dark brown hair and the startling blue eyes, so like her own,
so familiar to her. He had her build and looks. He had something else, as well,
something she had yet to define, but was unmistakably there. He could be Bek.
But how? How could he be Bek?
"Bek is dead," she hissed at him, her slender body rigid within the dark robes.
On the ground to one side, a small bundle of clothing and shadows, Ryer Ord Star
knelt, head lowered in the veil of her long silver hair, hands clasped in her
lap. She had not moved since the Ilse Witch had appeared out of the night, had
not lifted her head an inch or spoken a single word. In the silence and
darkness, she might have been a statue carved of stone and set in place by her
maker to ward a traveler's place of rest.
The Ilse Witch's eyes passed over her in a heartbeat and fell upon the boy. "Say
something!" she hissed anew. "Tell me why I should believe you!"
"I was saved by a shape-shifter called Truls Rohk," he answered finally, his
gaze on her steady. "I was taken to the Druid Walker, who in turn took me to the
people who raised me as their son. But I am Bek."
"You could not know any of this! You were only two when I hid you in that
cellar!" She caught herself. "When I hid my brother. But my brother is dead, and
you are a liar!"
"I was told most of it," he admitted. "I don't remember anything of how I was
saved. But look at me, Grianne. Look at us! You can't mistake the resemblance,
how much alike we are. We have the same eyes and coloring. We're brother and
sister! Don't you feel it?"
She advanced a step. "Why would a shape-shifter save you when it was shape-
shifters who killed my parents and took me prisoner? Why would the Druid save
you when he sought to imprison me?"
The boy was already shaking his head slowly, deliberately, his blue eyes
intense, his young face determined. "No, Grianne, it wasn't the shape-shifters
or the Druid who killed our parents and took you away. They were never your
enemies. Don't you realize the truth yet? Think about it, Grianne."
"I saw his face!" she screamed in fury. "I saw it through a window, a glimpse,
passing in the dawn light, just before the attack, before I ..."
She trailed off, wondering suddenly, unexpectedly, if she could have been
mistaken. Had she seen the Druid as the Morgawr had insisted, when he told her
to think back, so certain she would? How could he have known what she would see?
The implication of what it would mean if she had deceived herself was
staggering. She brushed it away violently, but it coiled up in a corner of her
memory, a snake still easily within reach.
"We are Ohmsfords, Grianne," the boy continued softly. "But so is Walker. We
share the same heritage. He comes from the same bloodline as we do. He is one of
us. He has no reason to do us harm."
"None that you could fathom, it appears!" She laughed derisively. "What would
you know of dark intentions, little boy?
What has life shown you that would give you the right to suppose your insight
into such things is better than mine?"
"Nothing." He seemed momentarily at a loss for words, but his face spoke of his
need to find them. "I haven't lived your life, I know. But I'm not naive about
what it must have been like."
Her patience slipped a notch. "I think you believe what you are telling me," she
told him coldly. "I think you have been carefully schooled to believe it. But
you are a dupe and a tool of clever men. Druids and shape-shifters make their
way in the world by deceiving others. They must have looked long and hard to
find you, a boy who looks so much like Bek would look at your age. They must
have congratulated themselves on their good fortune."
"How did I come to have his name, then?" the boy snapped in reply. "If I'm not
your brother, how do I have his name? It is the name I was given, the name I
have always had!"
"Or at least, that is what you believe. A Druid can make you embrace lies with
little more than a thought, even lies about yourself." She shook her head
reprovingly. "You are sadly deceived, to believe as you do, to think yourself a
dead boy. I should destroy you on the spot, but perhaps that is what the Druid
is hoping I will do, what he wants me to do. Perhaps he thinks it will somehow
damage me if I kill a boy who looks so like my brother. Tell me where the Druid
waits, and I will spare you."
The boy stared at her in horror. "You are the one who is deceived, Grianne. So
much so that you will tell yourself anything to keep the truth at bay."
"Where is the Druid?" she snapped, her face contorting angrily. "Tell me now!"
He took a deep breath, straightening. "I've come a long way for this meeting.
Too far to be intimidated into giving up what I know is true and right. I am
your brother. I am Bek. Grianne-"
"Don't call me that!" she screamed. Her gray robes billowed from her body and
she threw up her arms in fury, almost as if to smother his words, to bury them
along with her past. She felt her temper slipping, her grip on herself sliding
away like metal on oiled metal, and the raw power of her voice took on an edge
that could easily cut to ribbons anything or anyone against which it was
directed. "Don't speak my name again!"
He stood his ground. "What name should I speak? Ilse Witch? Should I call you
what your enemies call you? Should I treat you as they do, as a creature of dark
magic and evil intent, as someone I can never be close to or care about or want
to see become my sister again?"
He seemed to gain strength with every new word, and suddenly she saw him as more
dangerous than she had believed. "Be careful, boy."
"You are the one who needs to be careful!" he snapped. "Of who and what you
believe! Of everything you have embraced since the moment you were taken from
our home. Of the lies in which you have cloaked yourself!"
He pointed at her suddenly. "We are alike in more ways than you think. Not
everything that links us is visible to the eye. Grianne Ohmsford has her magic,
her birthright, now the tool of the Ilse Witch. But I have that magic, too! Do
you hear it in my voice? You do, don't you? I'm not as practiced as you, and I
only just discovered it was there, but it is another link in our lives, Grianne,
another part of the heritage we share-"
She felt his voice taking on an edge similar to her own, a biting touch that
caused her to flinch in spite of herself and to bring her defenses up instantly.
"-just as we share the same parents, the same fate, the same journey of
discovery, brought about by a search for the treasure hidden in the ruins that
lie inland from here . . ."
She brought her voice up in a low, vibrant hum, a soft blending with the night
sounds, faint and sibilant, leaves rustling in the breeze, insects chirping and
buzzing, birds winging past as swift shadows, the breath of living things. Her
decision was made in an instant, quick and hard; he was too dangerous for her to
let live, whoever or whatever he was. Too dangerous for her to ignore as she had
thought to do. He had something of magic about him after all, magic not unlike
her own. It was what she had sensed about him earlier and been unable to define,
hidden before but present now in the sound of his voice, a whisper of
possibility.
Put an end to him, she warned herself.
Put an end to him at once!
Then something shimmered to one side, drawing her attention from the boy. She
struck at it without thinking, the magic escaping from her in a rush of iron
shards and razored bits that cut through the air and savaged her intended target
without pause or effort. But the shimmer had moved another way. Again, the Ilse
Witch struck at it, her voice a weapon of such power that it shattered the
silence, whipped the leaves of the surrounding trees as if they were caught in a
violent wind, and left voiceless and wide-eyed in shock the boy who had been
speaking.
An instant later, he disappeared. It happened so quickly and unexpectedly that
it was done before the Ilse Witch could act to stop it. She blinked at the empty
space in which he had stood, seeing the brightness take on shape and form anew,
becoming a series of barely recognizable movements that crossed through the
night like shadows vaguely human in form chasing one another. She lashed out at
them in surprise, but she was too slow and her attack too misdirected to catch
more than empty air.
She wheeled this way and that, searching for what had deceived her so
completely. Whatever it was, it was gone and it had taken the boy with it. Her
first impulse was to give pursuit. But first impulses were seldom wise, and she
did not give in to this one. She scanned the empty clearing, then the
surrounding forest, searching with her senses for traces of the boy's rescuer.
It took her only a moment to discover its identity. A shape-shifter. She had
sensed its presence before, she realized-on Black Moclips, after the nighttime
collision with the Jerle Shannara. It was the same creature and no mistake. It
must have come aboard during the confusion to spy on her, then remained hidden
for the remainder of the voyage. That could not have been easy, given the
intensity of her control over ship's quarters and crew. This particular shape-
shifter was skilled and experienced, a veteran of such efforts, and not in the
least awed by her.
A new rage built in her. It must have followed her from the ship to the
clearing, revealing itself when it believed the boy in danger. Did it know the
boy? Or the Druid? Did it serve either or both? She believed it must. Otherwise,
why would it involve itself in this business at all? A protector for the boy
then? Perhaps. If so, it would confirm what she had believed from the beginning,
from the moment the boy had tried to trick her into thinking he might be Bek.
The Druid had concocted an elaborate scheme to undermine her confidence in her
mission and her trust in the Morgawr, to sabotage their relationship, and to
render her vulnerable so that he might find a way to destroy her before she
could destroy him.
She clenched her hands before her, fingers knotting until the knuckles turned
white. She should have killed the boy at once, the moment he spoke her name! She
should have used the wishsong to burn him alive, waiting for him to beg her to
save him, to admit to his lies! She should never have listened to anything he
said!
Yet now that she had, she couldn't shake the feeling that she shouldn't dismiss
him too quickly.
She turned the matter over in her mind carefully, examining it anew. The
resemblance between them could be explained away, of course. A boy who looked
like her could be found easily enough. Nor would it be all that hard for Walker
to make the boy think he was Bek, even to think he had always been called Bek.
Duping him into believing he was her brother and somehow her rescuer was
certainly within the Druid's capabilities. It was reasonable to believe that he
had been brought along on the voyage solely for the purpose of somehow,
somewhere encountering her and acting out his part.
But ...
Her pale, luminous face lifted and her blue eyes stared off into the night.
There, at the end, when he had lost his patience with her, when he had
challenged her as no one else would dare to do, not even the Morgawr, something
about him had reminded her of herself. A conviction, a certainty that registered
in his words and his posture, in the directness and intensity of his gaze. But
more than this, she had sensed something unexpected and familiar in his tone of
voice, something that could not be mistaken for anything other than what it was.
He had told her, but in the heat of the moment she had not believed him,
thinking only that he was threatening her, that he could do damage to her in an
unexpected way, and so she must protect herself. But it had been there
nevertheless.
He had the magic of the wishsong, her magic, her power duplicated.
Who but her brother or another Ohmsford would possess power like that?
The contradiction of what seemed to be true and what seemed to be a lie
frustrated and confused her. She wanted to explain the boy away with no further
consideration, but she could not do so. There was in him enough of real magic to
cause her to wonder at his true identity, even if she did not believe him to be
Bek. The Druid could do many things in creating a tool with which to deceive
her, but he could not instill another with magic, and particularly not with
magic of this sort.
So who was the boy and what was the truth of him?
She knew what she should do; it was what she had come all this way to do. Find
the treasure that was hidden in Castledown and make it her own. Find the Druid
and destroy him. Regain the safety of Black Moclips and sail home again as
swiftly as possible and be shed of this voyage and its dangers.
But the boy intrigued and disturbed her, so much so that almost without
understanding why, she was rethinking her plans entirely. Despite what she knew
of his duplicity, whether willing or not, she was loath to give up on solving
the mystery of him when so much of what she discovered might impact her. Not in
any life-altering manner, of course; she had already made her mind up to that.
But in some smaller, yet still important way.
How hard would it be to discover the truth about him, once she set her mind to
it? How much time would it take?
The Morgawr would not approve, but he approved of little she did these days. Her
relationship with her mentor had been deteriorating for some time. They no
longer shared the student/teacher connection they once had. She was as much the
master now as he was, and she chafed at the restrictions he constantly sought to
place upon her. She had not forgotten what she owed him, was not ungrateful for
all he had taught her over the years. But she disliked his insistence on keeping
her in her place, always his subordinate, his underling, a charge who must do as
he dictated. He was old, and perhaps because he was old he could no longer
change as easily as could the young. Self-preservation was what mattered to him.
But she did not aspire to live a thousand years. She did not consider near
immortality a benefit to be sought. Hence the need to get on with things, rather
than sit and plot and wait and scheme, as he was so used to doing.
No, he would not approve, and in this case she would be wrong in failing to
consider that. Seeking out the boy to solve his mystery and satisfy her
curiosity was mere self-indulgence. She hesitated a moment, then brushed her
hesitation aside. It was her decision to make, her choice if she wasted time
that, in any case, belonged to her. The boy had something she needed, whether
the Morgawr would agree with her or not. In any event, he was not here to advise
her. Cree Bega would presume to speak for him, but the Mwellret's opinion meant
next to nothing to her.
She would have to act quickly, however. The ret was not too far behind her,
coming along with two dozen others. His approach was delayed only because,
wishing to go ahead by herself, to have the first look at what waited, she had
ordered him to wait. Perhaps, she added, to make certain he did not interfere
with anything she decided she must do with what she found. Perhaps just to keep
him in line, where he belonged.
She walked over to Ryer Ord Star and bent down, trying to determine if the seer
was coming out of her trance. But the girl never moved, sitting silently,
motionlessly in the night, head lowered in shadow, eyes closed. She was
breathing steadily, calmly, so it was apparent her health was not in danger.
What was she doing, though? Where inside herself had she gone?
The Ilse Witch knelt in front of the girl. She had no time to wait for the seer
to conclude her meditations. She needed her answers. She placed her fingers on
the other's temples, just as she had done with the castaway whose revelations
had begun this whole matter, and she began to probe. The effort required was
small. Ryer Ord Star's mind opened to her like a flower before the rising sun,
her memories tumbling out like falling petals. Without a glance at most of them,
the Ilse Witch went directly for those most recent, the ones that would reveal
the fate of the Druid.
Revelations surfaced like the ocean's dead, stark and bare. She saw a battle
within Old World ruins, a battle in which the Druid and his company were
assaulted on all sides by lines of red fire that burned and seared. Walls
shifted, raising from and lowering into smooth metal floors. Creepers appeared
from nowhere, metal monsters on skittering legs with claws that rent and tore.
Men fought and died in a swirl of thick smoke and spurts of fire. Seen through
Ryer Ord Star's eyes, filtered through her emotions, everything was chaotic and
awash in fear and desperation.
Amid the madness, the Druid advanced past lines of attack and changes in
terrain, his steady, deliberate progress aided by his magic and buttressed by
his courage and determination. Say what you would, the Druid had never been a
coward. He fought his way into the heart of the ruins, shouting in vain for the
others of his company to fall back, to flee, trying to keep them alive. At last
he gained the doorway to a black tower, forced an entry, and disappeared inside.
Ryer Ord Star screamed and started after him, then was struck by the fire and
sent pinwheeling into a wall. Her thoughts of the Druid faded, then went black.
The Ilse Witch took her fingers from the seer's temples and sat back on her
heels, perplexed. Interesting. The communication had come without words of any
sort and with no resistance at all. Was this the nature of empaths, that they
could neither dissemble nor conceal? She found herself wondering at the girl's
pursuit of the Druid, galvanized by the latter's disappearance into the tower.
Why would she risk herself so? The girl had been instructed to stay close to the
Druid at all times, to make herself indispensable to him, to gain his confidence
and his ear. Clearly she had done so. But was there something more between them,
something that went beyond the charge she had been given as the Ilse Witch's
spy?
There was no way to know. Not without damaging the girl, and she wasn't prepared
to go to that length just yet. She had what she wanted for now-a clear picture
of what had befallen those from the company of the Jerle Shannara who had gone
inland with the Druid. She could not be certain of the Druid's fate, however.
Perhaps he was dead. Perhaps he was trapped beneath the ruins. Whatever the
case, he did not present any danger to her. Without an airship to carry him off
and with most of his company dead or imprisoned, he could do little harm.
She had time for the boy, then. Enough, that she did not need to consider the
matter further.
摘要：

ONEGrianneOhmsfordwassixyearsoldonthelastdayofherchildhood.Shewassmallforherageandlackedunusualstrengthofbodyorextraordinarylifeexperienceandwasnotthereforeparticularlywellpreparedforgrowingupallatonce.ShehadlivedthewholeofherlifeontheeasternfringesoftheRabbPlains,ashelteredchildinashelteredhome,the...

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