His hands tightened further, and smoke rose through his fingers where they gripped the men’s wrists. Now the men were howling and screaming as their imprisoned wrists and hands turned black and charred, burned from the inside out.
The ragpicker released them then and let them drop to the ground in huddled balls of quaking, blubbering despair, cradling their damaged arms. “You’ve ruined such a lovely day, too,” he admonished. “All I wanted was to be left alone to enjoy it, and now this. You are pigs of the worst sort, and pigs deserve to be roasted and eaten!”
At this they cried out anew and attempted to crawl away, but the ragpicker was on them much too quickly, seizing their heads and holding them fast. Smoke rose from between his clutching fingers and the men jerked and writhed in response.
“How does that feel?” the ragpicker wanted to know. “Can you tell what’s happening to you? I’m cooking your brains, in case you’ve failed to recognize what you are experiencing. Doesn’t feel very good, does it?”
It was a rhetorical question, which was just as well because neither man could manage any kind of intelligible answer. All they could do was hang suspended from the ragpicker’s killing fingers until their brains were turned to mush and they were dead.
The ragpicker let them drop. He thought about eating them, but the idea was distasteful. They were vermin, and he didn’t eat vermin. So he stripped them of their clothing, taking small items for his collection, scraps of cloth from each man that would remind him later of who they had been, and left the bodies for scavengers he knew would not be picky. He gathered up his soiled rags from the earth into which they had been ground, brushed them off as best he could, and returned them to his carry bag. When everything was in place, he gave the dead men a final glance and started off once more.
Bones of the dead left lying on the ground.
One more day and they will never be found.
Ragpicker, ragpicker, you never know
There are rags to be found wherever you go.
He sang it softly, repeated it a few times for emphasis, rearranging the words, and then went quiet. An interesting diversion, but massively unproductive. He had hoped the two creatures might have information about the man with the black staff, but they had disappointed him. So he would have to continue the search without any useful information to aid him. All he knew was what he sensed, and what he sensed would have to be enough for now.
The man he sought was somewhere close, probably somewhere up in those mountains ahead. So eventually he would find him.
Eventually.
The ragpicker allowed himself a small smile. There was no hurry. Time was something he had as much of as he needed.
Time didn’t really matter when you were a demon.
For
Lester Del Rey
Expert
A writer since high school, Terry Brooks published his first novel, The Sword of Shannara, in 1977. It was a New York Times bestseller for more than five months. He has published seventeen consecutive bestsellers since, including The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara: Antrax and the novel based upon the screenplay and story by George Lucas: Star Wars®: Episode I The Phantom Menace©. His novels Running with the Demon and A Knight of the Word were selected by the Rocky Mountain News as two of the best science fiction/fantasy novels of the twentieth century.
The author was a practicing attorney for many years but now writes full-time. He lives with his wife, Judine, in the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii.
Visit us online at www.shannara.com and at www.terrybrooks.net.
Books by Terry Brooks
The Magic Kingdom of Landover:
MAGIC KINGDOM FOR SALE—SOLD!
THE BLACK UNICORN
WIZARD AT LARGE
THE TANGLE BOX
WITCHES’ BREW
Shannara
FIRST KING OF SHANNARA
THE SWORD OF SHANNARA
THE ELFSTONES OF SHANNARA
THE WISHSONG OF SHANNARA
The Heritage of Shannara:
THE SCIONS OF SHANNARA
THE DRUID OF SHANNARA
THE ELF QUEEN OF SHANNARA
THE TALISMANS OF SHANNARA
THE VOYAGE OF THE JERLE SHANNARA: ISLE WITCH
MORGWAR
Word and Void
RUNNING WITH THE DEMON
A KNIGHT OF THE WORD
ANGEL FIRE EAST
STAR WARS®:
EPISODE I THE PHANTOM MENACE©
HOOK
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A Del Rey® Book
Published by Ballantine Books
Copyright © 1985 by Terry Brooks
Excerpt from The Measure of the Magic copyright © 2011 by Terry Brooks.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
http://www.randomhouse.com
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 84-24185
This book contains an excerpt from The Measure of the Magic by Terry Brooks. This excerpt has been set for this edition and may not reflect the final content of the book.
eISBN: 978-0-345-44462-2
v3.0_r1
Terry Brooks, The Wishsong of Shannara
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