“If I let you come with me, I make you my responsibility whether I like it or not!” he snapped. “Can’t you see that?”
“What I see is that I can be of use to you.” Her voice was desperate, almost pleading. “You need me! I can guide you where you are going in the same way I guided you across the Lazareen and through the Slags. No one else can see in the dark the way I can. No one else has my sight. I can help, Penderrin. Please! Don’t leave me behind!”
“Of course, you’re coming,” Khyber Elessedil said quietly.
The Elven girl was standing in the doorway, watching them. They had been so wrapped up in their conversation, they hadn’t heard her come back in.
“Khyber, you’re not helping—”
“Don’t lecture me, Pen. We don’t need lectures, she and I. We share something that puts us in a better position to see what is needed here than you do. We’ve both lost someone important to us on this journey. We’ve lost a part of our family and, therefore, a part of ourselves. We could be diminished by this, but we won’t let that happen, will we, Cinnaminson? We will use it to make us stronger. Neither of us would consider for a moment being left behind. If you think that I am better equipped to handle what lies ahead because I have the use of the Elfstones or that Cinnaminson is less able because her talent lies only in her mind-sight, then you need to think again!”
She was so vehement that Pen was left speechless. Of all the people he had expected to agree with him on the matter, Khyber was at the top of the list.
“Get out of here, Pen,” the Elf girl ordered, gesturing toward the door. “Go find something to do. Cinnaminson and I need to talk. While we do, you think about what I just said. You think about whether what you are asking of her is reasonable or not. You think about everything that’s happened while you’re at it. Use your brain, if you can find a way to it through all your wrongheaded opinions.”
She was angry, her face flushed and her gestures curt and threatening. Pen stood up slowly and glanced down at Cinnaminson. She was staring straight ahead; tears were leaking from the corners of her eyes, streaking her smooth face. He started to say something, then stopped himself.
As he left the room, he felt Khyber Elessedil glaring at him. He walked through the house, past the surreptitious glances of the Trolls, his gaze directed straight ahead. When he was outside again, he stopped and stared into space, wondering exactly what had just happened.
THIRTEEN
Darkness had fallen over Paranor, deep and smothering, and the Druid’s Keep was wrapped in silence. Within the fortress halls, the Druids came and went like wraiths; cloaked in black and hooded, they passed down halls that echoed softly with the scrape of slippers and the rustle of robes. Some cradled books and loose-leaf writings in their arms. Some carried materials for the tasks they had been given in the cause of the Druid order.
One carried nothing but a second cloak, neatly folded over one arm, so preoccupied that not a glance was spared for those it passed.
Bek Ohmsford looked up as the cloaked figure entered the room, and it took him a moment to realize it wasn’t a Druid at all, but his wife. Rue Meridian came over to where he lay looking hot and feverish beneath his covers and laid the cloak at his feet.
She bent close to keep her voice a whisper. “I hope you don’t feel as bad as you look.”
He smiled. He was hot and sticky, and beads of sweat dotted his forehead. “I look terrible, don’t I? That root you gave me really works. Traunt Rowan was here earlier to see how I was doing. I told him the fever had come back worse than before and was highly contagious. He was in and out of the room in seconds. No one has been back since. You found the robes, I see. No one saw you?”
She sat beside him, leaned over, and kissed his forehead. “Have a little faith, Bek. I am resourceful enough when it’s needed. I just asked for them. I told the Druid I stopped that we would feel more comfortable being here if we were dressed as they were. Besides, it isn’t me they’re interested in. They watch me from around corners and through cracks in doors, but they don’t pay close attention. You are the one who matters. So long as they think you intend to do what you were brought here to do, we won’t have any trouble.”
Bek nodded. “After tonight, we’ll be more trouble than they thought possible. Hand me a cold cloth and towel.”
She rose and did what he had asked. He sat up in the bed and began wiping himself down, washing away the sweat and grit, then drying off. The room was streaked with shadows, and the candles he had lit at sunset did little to chase the gloom. All the better, he thought, for what they had in mind.
“Did you have a chance to check out Swift Sure?”
She sat next to him again, keeping her voice low. There was still reason to worry that they were being listened to. “They cut loose the aft radian draws and locked down the thruster lever. I didn’t see anything else. I pretended not to notice even that. I thought it better for them to think us unaware of their efforts. It might take us three minutes to make the necessary repairs. We can get away easily enough when we need to.”
He finished cleaning himself, rose, and began to dress. He moved quickly and quietly, glancing over at the door every so often, listening to the silence that surrounded them. It was infectious, that silence. Everything about the Druid’s Keep was measured in layers of silence, as if sound were an unwelcome intrusion. Perhaps it was, where power resided in such quantity and struggles to control it were all done through secret machinations and subtle deceits.
“I won’t be sorry to be gone from here,” she said. “Everything about this place is oppressive. How your sister stands it is a mystery to me. I wish her well, once we have her safely back from wherever she’s gone, but mostly I wish her the wisdom to choose, then, to be somewhere else.”
“I know.” He glanced around. “I wish I had a weapon.”
She reached beneath her robes, brought out a long knife, and handed it to him. “I retrieved it from the ship. I have my throwing knives, as well. But I don’t think weapons are going to do us much good if we have to stand and fight.”
“They might against those Gnome Hunters.” He tucked the long knife into his belt, then reached for the other Druid robe. “Any sign of the young Druid?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
They hadn’t so much as caught a glimpse of him since he had slipped Bek the warning note on that first day. Bek had burned the note and had Rue scatter the ashes from one end of the Keep to the other, but he still didn’t know who had tried to warn them or why. Clearly, the young Druid knew something about what was going on. He might know something about Pen, as well. But it was too risky to try to find out who he was. The best they could do was to keep watch for him, and so far he hadn’t reappeared.
“You would think he would try to make further contact.” Bek tightened the sash that bound the robe. “If he went to the trouble to contact us in the first place, he must want to help. He must be on my sister’s side in all this.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean he knows where she is or what’s happened to her. He might not know anything other than what he’s told us—that Shadea and the others are responsible. Maybe warning us was all he ever intended to do. It was enough to put us on guard.”
Bek finished with his preparations and walked over to put his hands on her shoulders and draw her close. “You could wait for me aboard Swift Sure,” he said. “I can do this alone.”
“I think we had this discussion about twenty years ago, didn’t we?” She leaned into him and kissed his mouth. “Let’s just go.”
They moved to the door and stood there for a moment listening. The Gnome Hunters assigned to the task of keeping watch were still stationed across the hallway, but they had been there for three days, and they were bored. It wouldn’t take much effort to get past them.
Bek looked at his wife. “Ready?”
She nodded, pulling up the hood to her cloak. He did the same, then opened the door and stepped through. Already
, he had the wishsong’s magic working, a soft low hum that carried no farther than the ears of the guards. It whispered purposefully to form images in their minds. It told them that the cloaked figures leaving the room were Druids, easily recognizable as such by their robes, that they needn’t bother with them and could look away.
By the time the guards looked back again, of course, the hallway was empty.
Bek and Rue moved swiftly to the stairs leading up to the cold chamber, turning into the stairwell before they could be seen. They had been fortunate in not encountering a single Druid on their way. If the Gnome Hunters at their sleeping room door didn’t realize they had been duped, they stood a good chance of reaching their destination unnoticed.
They climbed the stone stairs to the next floor, sliding through shadows and pools of light as soundless and stealthy as foxes at hunt. This was a dangerous business, and they knew it. If they were discovered, their duplicity would be revealed and there would no longer be any chance of using the Druid’s magic to find Pen. Worse, they probably would have to fight their way out of Paranor, and Bek wasn’t sure they were up to it. It was one thing to have survived while traveling aboard the Jerle Shannara, while they were still young. It was another to test themselves when they hadn’t fought a real battle in twenty years. Now was a poor time to find out if the magic of the wishsong could save them from the dangerous and experienced Shadea a’Ru.
In short, it would be best not to get caught.
At the top of the stairs, they stopped again while Bek peered around the corner and down the hallway. Nothing moved. The floor seemed deserted. There were no sleeping chambers on this floor, but a little farther on was the stairway that led to the north tower, which housed the quarters of the Ard Rhys. Shadea a’Ru would be there.
After a moment, they started down the corridor for the cold chamber. The biggest danger they faced was that someone else would already be in the room when they got there. That would not only prevent them from carrying out their plan, but would require them to explain why they were there, unescorted and uninvited. It would be a difficult situation. At best, they would probably be forced to flee from the Keep.
But luck was with them. When they opened the door, they found the cold chamber empty. Rue took a moment to scan the corridor once more, making sure no one had seen them, then nodded to Bek to close the door. They stood inside in silence, the chilly air penetrating even the heavy fabric of the Druid robes. Rue shivered. Bek made a quick survey of the room, glancing toward the deep shadows, peering into the gathered gloom. No candles or torches were lit there, and they wouldn’t risk lighting any. But a faint wash of light from moon and stars spilled through the high windows and reflected off the scrye waters in the stone basin, letting them see well enough to do their work.
Their plan wasn’t complicated and didn’t require much time. Bek had sensed Pen’s presence in the Charnals during his initial effort to make contact, but he had lacked time and opportunity to pinpoint his son’s location. Now, alone and undisturbed, he would use his magic on the waters to discover exactly where Pen was. Once he had accomplished that, they would slip back down through the Keep to Swift Sure and be on their way to retrieve him. The Druids might discover what had happened and try to follow, but their vessels were no match for Swift Sure, which was the fastest ship in the sky.
With Rue standing watch at the door, Bek moved to the basin and stood looking down at the scrye waters and the map of the Four Lands drawn on the surface of the bowl. The waters were still and untroubled, at rest save for where the faint pulse of the earth’s magic crisscrossed the surface along the earth’s lines of power. Bek studied their movements for a moment, then fixed his gaze on the Charnals and called up the wishsong. He did it quickly and quietly, directing the magic toward the area of the waters where he had sensed Pen to be the day before. He kept his concentration focused as he worked the magic deep into the basin, searching.
It took him only moments. His connection with his son was strong, born of his own history as a member of a family that had been connected by magic for centuries, and he found him almost instantly. He peered close, tightening down his search, marked the spot in his mind, and pulled the magic back again.
He went still, watching the scrye waters quiet and smooth once more, silver in the moonlight. He stepped away from the basin and turned back to Rue, nodding.
Together, they went out the doorway and back down the empty corridor toward the stairs. Neither spoke, unwilling to break the deep silence, to risk exposing themselves in any way. They would talk when they were aboard Swift Sure and safely away from this place.
On cat’s paws, they descended the ancient stone stairs toward the torchlit corridor below, listening and watching.
They had just emerged from the stairwell into the corridor when the heavy metal-laced nets dropped over them, pinning them to the floor, and dozens of Gnome Hunters appeared all around them, crossbows notched and ready.
Pen had explored the Rock Troll village for what remained of the day. He’d been so tired he could barely keep his eyes open but was unable to sleep because of what had happened in Kermadec’s home between himself and Cinnaminson. But Khyber’s scathing attack on him, an attack he still didn’t understand, really troubled him. Once or twice in his wanderings, he thought to return to the house and confront her, but he just couldn’t make himself do it. He was embarrassed and hurt, in part because he didn’t understand it, but mostly because it had happened in front of Cinnaminson.
So he forced himself to stay away until the evening celebration began, the welcome arranged for them by the members of the village, a feast with music and singing, neither of which he had ever associated with Trolls. But the music, consisting of pipes, drums, and a curious stringed instrument called a fiol, and the dancing, which was energetic and robust, brought him out of his mood sufficiently that by the time he had eaten two plates of rather wonderful food and drunk several pints of very strong ale, he was feeling pretty good again.
He even participated in the dancing, urged on by Kermadec and buttressed by the effects of the ale. He danced with whoever was nearest—men, women, and children alike—as there seemed to be little partnering in the Troll forms of dance, and he found himself thoroughly light-headed and happy by the time he was done.
Cinnaminson appeared with the others of his little group, and she sat with him during dinner and even danced with him briefly, but he couldn’t find the right words to say to her, and so they didn’t talk much. Tagwen was as taciturn as ever at first, though after a little of the ale he began to open up and pontificate endlessly on the virtues of hard work. Khyber smiled and clapped and spoke pleasantly to Pen, acting as if their earlier confrontation had never happened.
It was only when the evening was growing late, and his eyes were so heavy he was afraid he might fall over if he didn’t sleep soon, that the Elven girl came over to sit beside him. He was alone at that point, sipping at his ale, listening to the music, and watching the Trolls dance in the firelight with what appeared to him to be boundless energy.
“I was too hard on you earlier,” she said, putting her hand over his. “I didn’t mean to scold. At the time, I was so mad, I just lashed out. I assumed you understood the problem, but thinking it through later, I realized you didn’t.”
He looked at her. “What problem?”
“If I tell you this, you must promise to keep it to yourself. Do you promise?”
He nodded. “All right.”
“When I heard you tell Cinnaminson she couldn’t come with us, all I could think about was how insensitive you were being to her situation. You saw it as common sense: If she came, she would be placed in danger again, and you wanted to keep her safe. I saw it through her eyes: You were casting her off as damaged and useless, no longer worthy of being a part of your life. She’s in love with you, Penderrin. I warned you about this, but you paid no attention to me. You brought this on yourself, giving her so much of your time aboard ship, telli
ng her how wonderful she was.”
He bristled instantly. “I didn’t say anything I didn’t mean! Anyway, I don’t see—”
She held up one hand in warning. “Don’t say anything more until you hear me out. You don’t see, indeed. If you did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Now, listen. What do you think happened to her after that monster killed her father and the other two? Do you think she was left alone? Do you think that all that happened was that she was used to track you? It was bad enough that she had to lie trussed up and helpless belowdecks and listen to the cries of her father and cousins as they died; that was damage enough for an entire lifetime. But that wasn’t the end of it.”
He went cold. “What are you saying?”
Her dark eyes fixed on him. “I’m saying that she endured three days alone with that monster, and it wasn’t satisfied with using her gift for night sight. It used her for other things, too. She told me. You didn’t ask her if she had been abused physically, did you? It never even occurred to you that she might have been violated in other ways. This thing, this creature that took her, doesn’t have any qualms about watching others suffer. It likes it. It enjoys inflicting pain. All kinds of pain.”
He stared at her. He tried to say something, but the words lodged in his throat. A wave of nausea washed through him.
“So now she views herself as despicable.” Khyber held his gaze. “When you tell her she can’t go with you anymore, she sees it as an affirmation of what she already believes to be true about herself—that she is worthless, that no one could love her. It doesn’t matter that you don’t know the truth because she has kept it to herself. It’s enough that she knows.”
Pen looked off into the darkness, filled with sudden rage, filled with a need to exact revenge for what had happened, but impotent to do anything but sit and fume. The images that filled his mind were so terrible that he couldn’t bear them. “I didn’t realize what I was doing by telling her she couldn’t come,” he said quietly. “I didn’t know.”