7

All that day, the Gnomes marched Jair north through the wooded hill country bordering the western perimeter of Leah. Embracing the shelter of the trees, forsaking the more accessible roadways that crisscrossed the highlands, they kept to themselves and to their purpose. It was a long, exhausting trek for the Valeman, made no less difficult by the way in which he was secured, for his bonds cut into and cramped his body with every step. His discomfort might not have gone unnoticed, but it went unrelieved. Nor did his captors evidence the slightest concern for the toll that the pace of their march was extracting from him. Rugged, hardened veterans of the border wars of the deep Eastland, they were accustomed to forced marches through the worst kind of country and under the least favorable of conditions-marches that at times lasted several days. Jair was fit, but he was no match for these men.

By nightfall, when they at last arrived on the shores of the Rainbow Lake and made their way down to a secluded cove to set their camp, Jair could barely walk. Bound once again to a tree, given a quick meal and a few swallows of ale, he was asleep in minutes.

The following day passed in similar fashion. Awake at sunrise, the Gnomes took him east along the shores of the lake, skirting the northern highlands that they might reach the concealment of the Black Oaks. Three times that day, the Gnomes paused to rest-once at midmorning, again at midday and a final time at midafternoon. The remainder of the day, they walked and Jair walked with them, his body aching, his feet blistered and raw. Pushed to the limit of his endurance, he refused to give them the satisfaction of seeing him falter, even for a moment. Determination gave him strength, and he kept pace.

All the time they marched him through the highlands, he thought about escape. It never entered his mind that he wouldn’t escape; it was only a question of when. He even knew hove he would manage it. That part was easy. He would simply make himself invisible to them. That was something they wouldn’t be looking for-not so long as they thought his magic limited to creating imaginary spiders and snakes. They didn’t understand that he could do other things as well. Sooner or later he would be given the opportunity. They would free him just long enough so that he could make use of the magic one more time. Just a moment was all that he would need. Like that, he would be gone. The certainty of it burned bright within him.

There was added incentive now for his need to escape. Slanter had told him that the walker that had come into the Vale with the Gnome patrol had gone east again in search of Allanon. But how was Allanon to know that the Mord Wraith tracked him? There was only Jair to warn him, and the Valeman knew he must find a way to do so.

His plans for escape were still foremost in his thoughts when, later that afternoon, they passed into the Black Oaks. The great dark trunks rose about them like a wall. In moments the sun was screened away. They traveled deep into the forest, following a pathway that ran parallel to the shoreline of the lake, winding their way steadily eastward into dusk. It was cooler here, deep and silent within these trees. Like a cave opening downward into the earth, the forest took them in and swallowed them up.

By sundown, the highlands were far behind. Camped within a small clearing sheltered by the oaks and a long ridgeline that dropped away northward to the water’s edge, the Valeman sat back against a moss-grown trunk a dozen times his girth-bound and gagged still-and watched Slanter scoop meat stew from a kettle that simmered over a small cooking fire. Weary and discomfited, Jair nevertheless found himself studying the Gnome, pondering the contradictions he saw in the cracker’s character. For two days he had had ample opportunity to observe Slanter, and he was as puzzled by the Gnome now as he had been when he had first conversed with him that night following his capture. What sort of fellow was he? True, he was a Gnome-yet at the same time, he didn’t seem like a Gnome. Certainly he wasn’t an Eastland Gnome. He wasn’t like these Gnomes he traveled with.

Even they seemed to sense that much. Jair could see it in their behavior toward him. They tolerated him, but they also avoided him. And Slanter had acknowledged that to Jair. He was as much an outsider in his own way as the Valeman. But it was more than that. There was something in the Gnome’s character that set him apart from the others-an attitude, perhaps, an intelligence. He was smarter than they. And that was due most probably to the fact that he had done what they had not. A skilled tracker, a traveler of the Four Lands, he was a Gnome who had broken the traditions of his people and gone out of the homeland. He had seen things they had not. He understood things they could not. He had learned.

Yet in spite of all that, he was here. Why?

Slanter ambled over from the fire with a plate of stew in one hand and squatted down beside him. Loosing the gag so that his mouth was clear, the Gnome began to feed him.

“Doesn’t taste too bad, does it?” The dark eyes watched him.

“No-tastes good.”

“You can have more if you want.” Slanter stirred the stew on the plate absently. “How do you feel?”

Jair met his gaze squarely. “I hurt everywhere.”

“Feet?”

“Especially the feet.”

The Gnome set down the stew. “Here, let me have a look.”

He pulled free the Valeman’s boots and stockings and examined the blistered feet, shaking his head slowly. Then he reached over into his pack and pulled free a small tin. Loosening its cap, he dipped his fingers in and extracted a reddish salve. Slowly he began rubbing it into the open wounds. The salve was cool and eased the pain.

“Should take away some of the sting, help toughen the skin when you walk,” he said. He rubbed on some more, glanced up momentarily, his rough yellow face creasing with a sad smile, and then looked down again. “Tough sort of nut, aren’t you?”

Jair didn’t say anything. He watched the Gnome finish applying the salve, then resumed his meal. He was hungry and had two plates of the stew.

“Take a drink of this.” Slanter held the ale container to his lips when the food was gone. He took several swallows, grimacing. “You don’t know what’s good for you,” the Gnome told him.

“Not that stuff” Jair scowled.

Slanter sat back on his heels. “I heard something a little while ago I think you ought to know. It’s not good news for you.” He paused, glancing casually over his shoulder. “We’re to meet with a walker the other side of the Oaks. There’ll be one waiting for us. Spilk said so.”

Jair went cold. “How does he know that?”

Slanter shrugged. “Prearranged meet, I guess. Anyway, I thought you should know. We’ll be through the Oaks tomorrow.

Tomorrow? Jair felt his hopes fade instantly. How could he escape by tomorrow? That wasn’t enough time! He had thought he would have at least a week and maybe more before they reached the deep Anar and the Mord Wraiths’ stronghold. But tomorrow? What was he going to do?

Slanter watched him as if reading his thoughts. “I’m sorry, boy. I don’t care for it either.”

Jair’s eyes shifted to meet his, and he tried to keep the desperation from his voice. “Then why don’t you let me go?”

“Let you go?” Slanter laughed tonelessly. “You’re forgetting who’s with whom, aren’t you?”

He took a long swallow from the ale pouch and sighed. Jair leaned forward. “Why are you with them, Slanter? You’re not like them. You don’t belong with them. You don’t...”

“Boy!” The Gnome cut him off sharply. “Boy, you don’t know anything at all about me! Nothing! So don’t be telling me who I’m like and who I belong with! Just look after yourself!”

There was a long silence. In the center of the clearing, the other Gnomes were gathered about the fire, drinking ale from a heavy leather jug. Jair could see the glitter of their sharp eyes. as they glanced in his direction from time to time. He could see the suspicion and fear mirrored there.

“You’re not like them,” he repeated softly.

“Maybe,” Slanter agreed suddenly, staring off into the dark. “But I know enough not to cut against the grain. There’s a change in the wind. It’s shifted about and it’s blowing straight out of the east, and everything in its path will be swept away. Everything! You don’t begin to see the half of it. The Mord Wraiths are power like nothing I’d ever imagined, and the whole of the Eastland belongs to them. But that’s only today. Tomorrow...” He shook his head slowly. “This is no time for a Gnome to be anything other than a Gnome.”

He drank again of the ale, then offered it to Jair. The Valeman shook his head. His mind worked frantically.

“Slanter, would you do me a favor?” he asked.

“Depends.”

“Would you take the ropes off my arms and hands for a few minutes?” The Gnome’s black eyes narrowed. “I just want to rub them a bit, try to get some feeling back. I’ve had the ropes on for two days now. I can barely feel my fingers. Please-I give you my word I won’t try to escape. I won’t use the magic.”

Slanter studied him. “Your word’s been pretty good until now.”

“It’s still good. You can leave my legs and feet bound if you like. Just give me a moment.”

Slanter kept looking at him for a few minutes longer, then nodded. Moving forward, he knelt beside the Valeman, then loosened the knots that secured the ropes about his arms and wrists and let them fall slack. Gingerly Jair began to massage himself, rubbing first his hands, then his wrists, his arms, and finally his body. In the darkness before him, he saw the glint of a knife in Slanter’s hand. He kept his eyes lowered and his thoughts hidden. Slowly he worked, all the while thinking, don’t let him guess, don’t let him see...

“That’s enough,” Slanter’s voice was gruff and sudden, and he drew the ropes tight again. Jair sat quietly, offering no resistance. When the ropes had again been secured, Slanter moved back in front of him.

“Better?”

“Better,” he said quietly.

The Gnome nodded. “Time to get some sleep.” He drank one time more from the ale pouch, then bent forward to test the bonds. “Sorry about the way this thing’s worked out, boy. I don’t like it any better than you do.”

“Then help me escape,” Jair pleaded, his voice a whisper.

Slanter stared at him wordlessly, blunt features expressionless. Gently he placed the gag back in Jair’s mouth and rose.

“Wish you and I had never met,” he murmured. Then he turned and walked away.

In the darkness, Jair let himself go limp against the oak. Tomorrow. One day more, and then the Mord Wraiths would have him. He shuddered. He had to escape before then. Somehow, he had to find a way.

He breathed the cool night air deeply. At least he knew one thing now that he hadn’t known before-one very important thing. Slanter hadn’t suspected. He had permitted Jair those few moments of freedom from the ropes-time to rub life back into his limbs and body, time to relieve them just a bit of the ache and discomfort.

Time to discover that he still retained possession of the Elfstones.

Too swift, it seemed, the morning came, dawn breaking gray and hard within the gloom of the Black Oaks. For the third day, the Gnomes marched Jair east. The warming touch of the sun was screened away by banks of storm clouds that rolled down from out of the north. A wind blew harsh and quick through the trees, chill with the promise of winter’s coming. Wrapped in their short cloaks, the Gnomes bent their heads against the swirl of silt and leaves and trudged ahead.

How can I escape?

How?

The question repeated itself over and over in the Valeman’s mind as he worked to keep pace with his captors. Each step marked the passing of the seconds that remained, the minutes, the hours. Each step took him closer to the Mord Wraith. This one day was all the time he had left. Somehow during the day he must find an opportunity to get free of his restraints long enough to utilize the wishsong. A single moment was all it would take.

Yet that moment might never come. He had not doubted that it would-until now. But the time slipped so fast from him! It was nearing midmorning, and already they had been on the march for several hours. Silently he berated himself for not seizing the opportunity Slanter had presented him with the night before when he had agreed to free him from his bonds. There had been time enough then to escape his captors. A few seconds to freeze them where they stood, covered with something so loathsome they could think of nothing else as he worked loose the bindings about his ankles, then a few seconds more to shift the pitch of his voice to hide him from their sight, and he would have been gone. Dangerous, yes, but he could have done it-except, of course, that he had given his word. What difference, if that word had been broken when it was given to a Gnome?

He sighed. It did make a difference somehow. Even with a Gnome, his word was still his word, and it meant something when he gave it. One’s word was a matter of honor. It was not a thing that could be bandied about when convenient or slipped on and off like clothing to match changes in the weather. If he went back on it even once, that opened the door to a flood of excuses for going back on it every time thereafter.

Besides, he wasn’t sure he could have done that to Slanter, Gnome or not. It was strange, but he had developed a certain attachment for the fellow. He wouldn’t have described it as affection exactly. Respect was more like it. Or maybe he just saw something of himself in the Gnome because they were both rather different sorts. In any case, he didn’t think he could have made himself trick Slanter like that, even to escape whatever it was that lay ahead.

He kicked at the leaves that blew across his path as he walked onward through the dark autumn day. He supposed that Rone Leah, were he there, would have had a plan for escape by now. Probably a good one. But Jair didn’t have a clue as to what it might have been.

Morning slipped away. The wind died with the coming of midday, but its chill lingered in the forest air. Ahead, the terrain grew rougher, the earth broken and rocky as the ridgeline slanted south and a series of ravines curved down across their pathway. Still the wall of oaks stretched on, immutable giants blind to the ages that had passed them by. Heedless of a small life like mine, Jair thought as he glanced upward at the great towering black monsters. Shutting me away, so that I have nowhere that I might run.

The path wound down a steep embankment, and the patrol followed its dark rut. Then the oaks gave way to a solitary stand of pine and fir, crowded close within the massive black trunks, hemmed like captives, stiff and frightened. The Gnomes trudged into their midst, grunting irritably as sharp-tipped boughs nipped and cut at them. Jair ducked his head and followed, the long needles raking his face and hands with stinging swipes.

A moment later he broke clear of the tangle and found himself in a broad clearing. A pool of water gathered at the base of the ravine, fed by a tiny stream that trickled down from out of the rocks.

A man stood next to the pool.

[[pg 81 picture]]

The Gnomes came to an abrupt, startled halt. The man was drinking water from a tin cup, his head lowered. He was dressed all in black-loose tunic and pants, forest cloak, and boots. A black leather pack lay beside him on the ground. Next to it rested a long wooden staff. Even the staff was black, of polished walnut. The man glanced up at them briefly. He looked to be an ordinary Southlander, a traveler, his face brown and creased by sun and wind, and his light hair turned almost silver. Flint gray eyes blinked once; then he looked away. He might have been any one of a hundred journeyers who passed through this part of the land daily. But from the moment he saw the man, Jair knew instinctively that he was not.

Spilk also sensed something unusual about the man. The Sedt glanced quickly at the Gnomes on either side as if to reassure himself that they were nine to the man’s one, then turned his gaze on Jair. Clearly he was upset that the stranger had seen their captive. He hesitated a moment longer, then started forward. Jair and the others followed.

Wordlessly, the patrol moved to the far end of the pool, their eyes never leaving the stranger. The stranger paid no attention. Stepping forward from his companions, Spilk filled his water pouch from the trickle that ran down off the rocks, then drank deeply. One by one, the other Gnomes did the same-all but Slanter, who stood next to Jair, unmoving. The Valeman glanced at the Gnome and found him staring fixedly at the stranger. There was something odd reflected in his rough face, something...

Recognition?

The stranger’s eyes lifted suddenly and met Jair’s. The eyes were flat and empty. For just an instant, they were locked upon his own, and then the stranger was facing Spilk.

“Traveling far?” he asked.

Spilk spit the water from his mouth. “Keep your nose to yourself.”

The stranger shrugged. He finished his water in his cup, then bent down to tuck the cup back into his pack. When he straightened again, the black staff was in his hand.

“Is the Valeman really so dangerous?”

The Gnomes stared at him sullenly. Spilk tossed aside his water pouch, took a firm grip on his cudgel and came around the edge of the pool until he stood at the forefront of his men.

“Who are you?” he snapped.

Again the stranger shrugged. “No one you want to know.”

Spilk smiled coldly. “Then walk away from here while you still can. This doesn’t concern you.”

The stranger didn’t move. He seemed to be thinking the matter through.

Spilk took a step toward him. “I said this doesn’t concern you.”

“Nine Gnome Hunters traveling through the Southland with a Valeman they’ve bound and gagged like a trussed pig?” A faint smile crossed the stranger’s weathered face. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it doesn’t concern me.”

He bent down to retrieve his pack, slipped it across one shoulder and started away from the pool, passing in front of the Gnomes. Jair felt his hopes, momentarily lifted, fade again. For just a moment, he had thought the stranger meant to aid him. He started to turn toward the pool again, thirsty for a drink of the water, but Slanter blocked his way. The Gnome’s eyes were still on the stranger, and now his hand came up slowly to grip Jair’s shoulder, guiding him back several paces from the others in the patrol.

The stranger had stopped again.

“On the other hand, maybe you’re wrong.” He stood no more than a half-dozen feet from Spilk. “Maybe this does concern me after all.”

The stranger’s pack slid from his shoulder to the ground, and the flint gray eyes fixed on Spilk. The Sedt stared at him, disbelief and anger twisting the blunt features of his face. Behind him, the other Gnomes glanced at one another uneasily.

“Stay behind me.” Slanter’s voice was a soft hiss in his ear, and the Gnome stepped in front of him.

The stranger moved closer to Spilk. “Why don’t you let the Valeman go?” he suggested softly.

Spilk swung the heavy cudgel at the stranger’s head. Quick as he was, the stranger was quicker, blocking the blow with his staff. The stranger stepped forward then, a smooth, effortless movement. Up came the staff, striking once, twice. The first blow caught the Sedt in the pit of his stomach, bending him double. The second caught him squarely across the head and dropped him like a stone.

For an instant, no one moved. Then, with a howl of dismay, the other Gnomes attacked, swords ripped from their sheaths and axes and spears lifting. Seven strong, they converged on the lone black figure. Jair bit into the gag that held him speechless when he saw what happened next. Cat-quick, the stranger blocked the assault, the black staff whirling. Two more Gnomes dropped in their tracks with shattered skulls. The remainder thrust and cut blindly as the stranger danced away. A glint of metal appeared from beneath the black cloak, and a short sword was gripped in the stranger’s hand. Seconds later, three more of the attackers lay stretched upon the earth, their life blood seeping from their bodies.

Now there were but two of the seven still standing. The stranger crouched before them, feinting with the short sword. The Gnomes glanced hurriedly at each other and backed away. Then one caught sight of Jair, half hidden behind Slanter. Abandoning his companion, he leaped for the Valeman. But to Jair’s surprise, Slanter blocked the way, a long knife in his hand. The attacker howled in rage at the betrayal, his own weapon sweeping up. From twenty feet away, the stranger was a blur of motion. Uncoiling with the suddenness of a snake, he whipped one arm forward, and the attacker went rigid in midstride, a long knife buried in his throat. Soundlessly, he collapsed.

That was enough for the remaining Gnome. Heedless of everything else, he bolted from the clearing and disappeared into the forest.

Only Jair, Slanter, and the stranger remained. The Gnome and the stranger faced each other wordlessly for a moment, weapons poised. The forest had gone silent about them.

“You, also?” the stranger asked quietly.

Slanter shook his head. “Not me.” The hand with the long knife dropped to his side. “I know who you are.”

The stranger did not seem surprised, but merely nodded. With his sword, he gestured at the Gnomes who lay stretched between them. “What about your friends?”

Slanter glanced down. “Friends? Not this lot. The misfortunes of war brought us together, and we’d traveled too far, already the same road. Stupid bunch, they were.” His dark eyes found the stranger’s. “The journey’s done for me. Time to choose another way.”

He reached back with the long knife and severed the ropes that bound Jair. Then he sheathed the knife and slipped loose the gag.

“Looks like you’ve got the luck this day, boy,” he growled. “You’ve just been rescued by Garet Jax!”

8

Even in a tiny Southland village like Shady Vale, they had heard of Garet Jax.

He was the man they called the Weapons Master-a man whose skill in single combat was so finely developed that it was said he had no equal. Choose whatever weapon you might or choose no other weapon than hands, feet, and body, and he was better than any man alive. Some said more than that-he was the best who had ever lived.

The stories were legend. Told in taverns when the drinks were passed about in the hours after work was finished, in village inns by travelers come from far, or about campfires and hearths when the night settled down about those gathered and the dark formed a bond that seemed strengthened somehow by the sharing of words, the stories of Garet Jax were always there. No one knew where he had come from; that part of his life was shrouded in speculation and rumor. But everyone knew at least one place that he had been and had a story to go with it. Most of the stories were true, verified by more than one who had been witness to its happening. Several were common knowledge, told and retold the length and breadth of the Southland and parts of the other lands as well.

Jair Ohmsford knew them all by heart.

One tale, the earliest perhaps, was of Gnome raiders preying on the outlying villages of Callahorn in the eastern borderlands. Smashed once by the Border Legion, the raiders had broken into small groups-remnants of fewer than a dozen men each in most cases-who continued to plague the less protected homesteads and hamlets. Legion patrols scouted the lands at regular intervals, but the raiders stayed hidden until they were gone. Then one day a band of ten struck a farmer’s home just south of the Mermidon’s joinder with the Rabb. There was no one there but the farmer’s wife, small children, and a stranger-little more than a boy himself-who had stopped to share a brief meal and a night’s sleep in exchange for chores that needed doing. Barricading the family in a storm cellar, he met the raiders as they tried to force their way in. He killed eight before the two remaining fled. After that, the raids slowed somewhat, it was said. And everyone began to talk about the stranger named Garet Jax.

Other tales were equally well known. In Arborlon, he had trained a special unit of the Home Guard to act as defenders of the Elven King Ander Elessedil. In Tyrsis, he had trained special units of the Border Legion, and others in Kern and Varfleet. He had fought for a time in the border wars between the Dwarves and Gnomes, instructing the Dwarves on weapons use. He had traveled for a time the deep Southland, engaged in the civil wars that raged between member states of the Federation. He had killed a lot of men there, it was said; he had made a great many enemies. He could not go back into the deep Southland anymore...

Jair cut short his thinking, aware suddenly that the man was staring at him, almost as if reading his thoughts. He flushed. “Thanks,” he managed.

Garet Jax said nothing. Flint gray eyes regarded him without expression a moment longer, then turned away. The short sword disappeared back within the shadows of the cloak, and the man in black began checking the bodies of the Gnomes who lay scattered about him. Jair watched a moment, then. glanced furtively at Slanter.

“Is that really Garet Jax?” he whispered.

Slanter gave him a black look. “I said so, didn’t I? You don’t forget someone like that. Knew him five years ago when he was training Legion soldiers in Varfleet. I was tracking for the Legion then, passing time. Like iron I was, but next to him...” He shrugged. “I remember once, there were some hard sorts, mad about being passed over in training-or something. Went after Jax with pikes when his back was turned. He didn’t even have a weapon. Four of them, all bigger than he was.” The Gnome shook his head, eyes distant. “He killed two of them, broke up the other two. So quick you could barely follow. I was there.”

Jair looked back again at the black-garbed figure. A legend, they said. But they called him other things, too. They called him an assassin-a mercenary with no loyalties, no responsibilities except to those who paid him. He had no companions; Garet Jax always traveled alone. No friends, either. Too dangerous, too hard for that.

So why had he helped Jair?

“This one’s still alive.”

The Weapons Master was bending over Spilk. Slanter and Jair glanced at each other, then stepped over to have a look.

“Thick skull,” Garet Jax muttered. He looked up as they joined him. “Help me pick him up.”

Together, they hauled the unconscious Spilk from the center of the clearing to its far side, then propped him against a pine. Retrieving the ropes that had been used to secure Jair, the Weapons Master now bound the Sedt hand and foot. Satisfied, he stepped back from the Gnome and turned to the two watching him.

“What’s your name, Valeman?” he asked Jair.

“Jair Ohmsford,” Jair told him, uneasy under the gaze of those strange gray eyes.

“And you?” he asked Slanter.

“I’m called Slanter,” the tracker replied.

There was a flicker of displeasure in the hard face. “Suppose you tell me what nine Gnome Hunters were doing with this Valeman?”

Slanter grimaced, but then proceeded to relate to the Weapons Master all that had befallen since the time he had first encountered Jair in Shady Vale. Much to the Valeman’s surprise, he even told the other what Jair had done to him to escape. Garet Jax listened without comment. When the tale was finished, he turned again to Jair.

“Is what he says right?”

Jair hesitated, then nodded. It wasn’t, of course-not entirely. A part of it was the fabricated story he had told to Spilk. But there was no reason to change that story now. Better that they both thought his father in Allanon’s company with the Elfstones-at least until Jair knew whom he should trust.

A long pause followed as the Weapons Master thought the situation through. “Well, I don’t think I should leave you alone in this country, Jair Ohmsford. Nor do I think it a good idea to leave you in the company of this Gnome.” Slanter flushed darkly, but held his tongue. “I think you had better come with me. That way I’ll know you’re safe.”

Jair stared at him uncertainly. “Come with you where?”

“To Culhaven. I have an appointment there, and you shall keep it with me. If this Druid and your father have gone into the Eastland, then quite possibly we shall find them there-or if not, at least we shall find someone who can take you to them.”

“But I can’t...” Jair started to say, then caught himself. He couldn’t tell them about Brin. He had to be careful not to do that. But he couldn’t go east either! “I can’t do that,” he finished. “I have a mother and sister in the villages south of the Vale who know nothing of what’s happened. I have to go back to warn them.”

Garet Jax shook his head. “Too far. I haven’t time. We’ll go east, then send word back when we get the chance. Besides, if what you’ve told me is right, it’s more dangerous going back than going ahead. The Gnomes and the Wraiths know about you now; they know where you live. Once it’s discovered you’ve escaped, they’ll come looking for you there again. I didn’t rescue you just to have you caught again the moment I’m gone.”

“But...”

The flat gray eyes froze him. “It’s decided. You go east.” He glanced briefly at Slanter. “You go where you wish.”

He strode back across the clearing to retrieve his pack and staff. Jair stood looking after him, trapped by indecision. Should he tell the man the truth or go east? But then, even if he told Garet Jax the truth, what difference would that make? The Weapons Master wasn’t likely to take him back in either case.

“Well, luck to you, boy.” Slanter was standing before him looking less than happy. “No hard feelings, I hope.”

Jair stared at him. “Where are you going?”

“What difference does it make?” The Gnome shot a venomous glance at Garet Jax. Then he shrugged. “Look, you’re better off with him than me. I should have gone my own way long ago.”

“I haven’t forgotten that you helped me, Slanter-all during the journey,” Jair said quickly. “And I think you would have helped me again if I needed it.”

“Well, you’re wrong!” the Gnome cut him short. “Just because I felt sorry for you doesn’t.... Look, I’d have turned you over to the walkers just as quick as Spilk, because that would have been the smart thing to do! You and this Weapons Master don’t begin to see what you’re up against!”

“I saw you stand there with that knife when the other Gnome came at me!” Jair insisted. “What about that?”

Slanter snorted, turning away angrily. “If I’d had any brains at all, I’d have let him have you. Do you know what I’ve done to myself? I can’t even go back to the Eastland now! That Gnome who ran off will tell them everything I did! Or Spilk, once he gets free!” He threw up his hands. “Well, who cares? Not really my country anyway. Don’t belong there; haven’t for years. Wraiths can’t be worried about tracking one poor Gnome. I’ll go north for a time, or maybe south into the cities, and let this whole thing take its own course.”

“Slanter...”

The Gnome wheeled suddenly, his voice a hiss. “But that one-he isn’t any better than me!” He gestured angrily at Garet Jax, who was drinking again from the pool. “Treats me as if this was all my doing-as if I was the one responsible! I didn’t even know about you, boy! I came here hunting the Druid! I didn’t like chasing after you, taking you off to the Wraiths!”

“Slanter, wait a minute!” Mention of the Mord Wraiths reminded the Valeman of something he had almost forgotten in his relief at being freed. “What about the walker we were supposed to meet on the other side of the Oaks?”

Slanter was annoyed at having his tirade cut short. “What about him?”

“He’ll still be there, won’t he?” Jair asked quietly.

The Gnome hesitated, then nodded. “I see your point. Yes, he’ll be there.” He frowned. “Just go another way; go around him.”

Jair stepped close. “Suppose he decides to go through him?” He motioned faintly toward Garet Jax.

Slanter shrugged. “Then there’ll be one less Weapons Master.”

“And one less of me.”

They stared at each other in silence. “What do you want from me, boy?” the Gnome asked finally.

“Come with us.”

“What!”

“You’re a tracker, Slanter. You can get us past the walker. Please, come with us.”

Slanter shook his head emphatically. “No. That’s the Eastland. I can’t go back there. Not now. Besides, you want me to take you to Culhaven. Me! The Dwarves would love that!” ‘

“Just to the border, Slanter,” Jair pressed. “Then go your own way. I won’t ask for any more than that.”

“I’m greatly appreciative of that!” the Gnome snapped. Garet Jax was coming back over to join them. “Look, what’s the point of all this? That one wouldn’t want me along anyway.”

“You don’t know that,” Jair insisted. He turned as the Weapons Master came up to them. “You said that Slanter could go where he wished. Tell him then that he can come with us.”

Garet Jax looked at the Gnome. Then he looked back at Jair.

“He’s a tracker,” Jair pointed out. “He might be able to help us avoid the walkers. He might be able to find a safe route east.”

The Weapons Master shrugged. “The choice is his.”

There was a long, awkward silence. “Slanter, if you do this, I’ll show you a little of how the magic works,” Jair said finally.

Sudden interest filled the Gnome’s dark eyes. “Well now, that’s worth a chance or...” Then he stopped. “No! What are you trying to do to me? Do you think you can bribe me? Is that what you think?”

“No,” Jair answered hastily. “I just...”

“Well, you can’t!” the other cut him short. “I don’t take bribes! I’m not some...!” He sputtered off into silence, unable to find the words to express what it was that he wasn’t. Then he straightened. “If it means this much to you, if it’s this important, then all right, I’ll come. If you want me to come, I’ll come-but not for a bribe! I’ll come because I want to come. My idea, understand? And just to the border-not a step further! I want nothing to do with the Dwarves!”

Jair stared at him in astonishment for a moment, then quickly stuck out his hand. Solemnly, Slanter shook it.

It was decided that Spilk would be left just as he was. It would take him considerable time to free himself, but eventually he would do so. If worse came to worst, he could always chew his way through the ropes, Slanter suggested blackly. If he yelled for help, perhaps someone would hear him. He would have to be careful though. The Black Oaks were populated by a particularly vicious species of timber wolf, and the calls were likely to draw their attention. On the other hand, the wolves might drift in for water anyway...

Spilk heard the last of this, stirring awake as Jair and his companions were preparing to set out. Dazed and angered, the burly Gnome threatened that they would all meet a most unpleasant end when he caught up with them again-and catch up with them he would. They ignored the threats-though Slanter appeared somewhat uneasy at hearing them-and minutes later the Sedt was left behind.

It was strange company in which Jair found himself now-a Gnome who had tracked him down, taken him prisoner, and kept him so for three days, and a legendary adventurer who had killed dozens more men than he had seen years on this earth. Here they were, the three of them, and Jair found the alliance thoroughly baffling. What were these two doing with him? Garet Jax might have gone his way without troubling himself about Jair, yet he had not done so. At risk to his own life, he had rescued the Valeman and then chosen to make himself temporary guardian. Why would a man like Garet Jax do such a thing? And Slanter might have rebuffed his request for help in avoiding whatever lay between them and the Anar, knowing the danger to himself and knowing that Garet Jax clearly didn’t trust him and would watch his every move. Yet quite unexpectedly, almost perversely, he had chosen to come anyway. Again-why?

But it was his own motives that surprised him most of all when he began to consider them. After all, if their decision to be with him was baffling, what of his to be with them? Slanter, until just moments ago, had been his jailer! And he was genuinely frightened of Garet Jax, his rescuer. Over and over again, he thought of the Weapons Master facing those Gnomes-quick, deadly, terrifying, as black as the death he dealt.

For an instant, the picture hung suspended in the Valeman’s mind; then quickly he thrust it aside.

Well, strangers on the road became companions for safety’s sake, and Jair supposed that that was the way to view what had happened here. He must keep his wits. After all, he was free now and in no real danger. In an instant’s time he could disappear. A single note of the wishsong, sung with the whisper of the wind, and he could be gone. Thinking about that gave him some sense of comfort. If he hadn’t been so deep within the Black Oaks, if it weren’t for the fact that the Mord Wraiths were searching for him, and if it weren’t for his desperate need to find help somewhere...

He tightened his mouth against the words. Speculation on what might have been was pointless. He had enough with which to concern himself. Above all, he had to remember to say nothing about Brin or the Elfstones.

They had walked less than an hour through the Oaks when they came to a clearing in which half a dozen trails merged. Slanter, leading the way through the darkened forest, drew to a halt and pointed to a trail leading south.

“This way,” he announced.

Garet Jax looked at him curiously. “South?”

Slanter’s heavy brows knitted. “South. The walker will come down out of the Silver River country through the Mist Marsh. It is the quickest and easiest way-at least for those devils. They’re not afraid of anything that lives in the marsh. If we want to take as few chances as possible, we’ll go south around the Marsh through the Oaks, then turn north above the lowlands.”

“A long way, Gnome,” the Weapons Master murmured.

“At least that way you’ll get where you’re going!” the other snapped.

“Perhaps we could slip by him.”

Slanter put his hands on his hips and squared his stocky frame about. “Perhaps we could fly, too! Hah! You haven’t any idea at all what you’re talking about!”

Garet Jax said nothing, his eyes fixing on the Gnome. Slanter seemed to sense suddenly that perhaps he had gone too far. Glancing hurriedly at Jair, he cleared his throat nervously and shrugged.

“Well, you don’t know the Mord Wraiths like I do. You haven’t lived among them. You haven’t seen what they can do.” He took a deep breath. “They’re like something stolen from the dark-as if each were a bit of night broken off. When they pass, you never see them. You never hear them. You just sense them-you feel their coming.” Jair shivered; remembering his encounter at Shady Vale and the invisible presence, just beyond the wall. “They leave no trail when they pass,” Slanter went on. “They appear and disappear just as their name would suggest. Mord Wraiths. Black walkers.”

He trailed off, shaking his head. Garet Jax looked over at Jair. All the Valeman could think about was what he had felt when he had come back to his home that night in the Vale and found one of them waiting.

“I don’t want to take the chance that we might stumble onto one of them,” he said quietly.

The Weapons Master readjusted the pack across his shoulders. “Then we go south.”

All afternoon they wound southward through the Black Oaks, following the pathway as it snaked ahead through the trees. Dusk fell over the forest, the gray light of midday fading rapidly into night. A faint mist began to seep through the trees, damp and clinging. It thickened steadily. The trail became more difficult to follow, disappearing at regular intervals as the mist settled in. Night sounds came out of the growing dark and the sounds were not pleasant.

Slanter called a halt. Should they stop for the night? he wanted to know. Both men looked to Jair. Stiff and tired, the Valeman glanced quickly about. Giant oaks rose about them, glistening black trunks hemming them in like a massive keep. Mist and shadows lay all around, and somewhere within them a black walker hunted.

Jair Ohmsford gritted his teeth against the aches and the weariness and shook his head. The little company went on.

Night also came to the clearing where Spilk sat bound to the great oak. All afternoon he had worked at his bonds, loosening the knots that held them and forcing them slack. Nothing else had passed through the clearing that day; no travelers had stopped to water; no wolves had come to drink. The crumpled bodies of his patrol lay where they had fallen, shapeless forms in the dusk.

His cruel features tightened as he strained against the ropes. Another hour or so and he would be free to hunt the ones who had done this to him. And he would hunt them to the very ends...

A shadow passed over him, and his head jerked up. A tall black form stood before him, cloaked and hooded, a thing of death strayed from the night. Spilk went cold to the bone.

“Master!” he whispered harshly.

The black figure gave no response. It simply stood there, looking down on him. Frantically the Sedt began to speak, the words tumbling over one another in his haste to get them out. He revealed all that had befallen him-the stranger in black, the betrayal by Slanter, and the escape of the Valeman with the magic voice. His muscled body thrashed against the bonds that held him fast, words inadequate to halt the fear that tightened about his throat. “I tried! Master, I tried! Free me! Please, free me!”

His voice broke, and the flood of words died away into stillness. His head drooped downward, and sobs wracked his body. For a moment, the figure above him remained motionless. Then one lean, black-gloved hand reached down to fasten on the Gnome’s head, and red fire exploded forth. Spilk shrieked, a single, terrible cry.

The black-robed figure withdrew his hand, turned, and disappeared back into the night. No sound marked its passing.

In the empty clearing, Spilk’s lifeless form lay slumped within its bonds, eyes open and staring.

9

Across the towering, jagged ridge of the Dragon’s Teeth, the night sky had gone from deepest blue to gray; the moon and stars were beginning to fade in brilliance, and the eastern sky began to glimmer faintly with the coming dawn.

Allanon’s dark eyes swept the impassable wall of the mountains that stood about him, across cliffs and peaks of monstrous, aged rock, barren and ravaged by wind and time. Then his gaze dropped quickly, almost anxiously, to where the stone split apart before him. Below lay the Valley of Shale, doorstep to the forbidden Hall of Kings, the home of the spirits of the ages. He stood upon its rim, his black robes wrapped close about his tall, spare frame. There was a sudden wistfulness on his face. A mass of black rock, glistening like opaque glass, crushed and strewn blindly, stretched downward to the valley floor, forming a broken walk. At the center of the rock stood a lake, its murky waters colored a dull, greenish black, the surface swirling sluggishly in the empty, windless silence-swirling like a kettle of brew that some invisible hand stirred with slow, mechanical purpose.

Father, he whispered soundlessly.

A sudden scraping of booted feet on the loose rock caused him to glance quickly about, reminded of the two who traveled with him. They emerged now from the shadow of the rocks below to stand beside him. Silently, they stared downward into the barren valley.

“Is this it?” Rone Leah asked shortly.

Allanon nodded. Suspicion cloaked the highlander’s words and lingered in his eyes. It was always evident. There was no attempt to hide it.

“The Valley of Shale,” the Druid said quietly. He started forward, winding his way down the rock-strewn slope. “We must hurry.”

Suspicion and mistrust were in the eyes of the Valegirl as well, though she sought to keep them from her face. There was always suspicion in those who shared his travel. It had been there with Shea Ohmsford and Flick when he had taken them in search of the Sword of Shannara and with Wil Ohmsford and the Elven girl Amberle when he had taken them in search of the Bloodfire. Perhaps it was deserved. Trust was something to be earned, not blindly given, and to earn it, one must first be open and honest. He was never that-could never be that. He was a keeper of secrets that could be shared with no other, and he must always veil the truth, for the truth could not be told, but must be learned. It was difficult to keep close what he knew, yet to do otherwise would be to tamper with the trust that had been given to him and which he had worked hard to earn.

His gaze flickered back briefly to be certain that the Valegirl and the highlander followed him; then he turned his attention again to the scattered rock at his feet, picking his way in studied silence. It would be easy to forgo the trust he kept, to reveal all that he knew of the fate of those he counseled, to lay bare the secrets he kept, and to let events transpire in a fashion different from that which he had ordered.

Yet he knew that he could never do that. He answered to a higher code of being and of duty. It was his life and purpose. If it meant that he must endure their suspicion, then so it must be. Harsh though it was, the price was a necessary one.

But I am so tired, he thought. Father, I am so tired.

At the floor of the valley, he came to a halt. Valegirl and highlander stopped beside him, and he turned to face them. One arm lifted from within the black robes and pointed to the waters of the lake.

“The Hadeshorn,” he whispered. “My father waits there, and I must go to him. You will stand here until I call. Do not move from this place. Whatever happens, do not move. Except for you and me, only the dead live here.”

Neither replied. They nodded their assent, eyes darting uneasily to where the waters of the Hadeshorn swirled soundlessly.

He studied their faces a moment longer, then turned and walked away.

A strange sense of expectation swept through him as he approached the lake, almost as if he were at the end of along journey. It was always that way, he supposed, thinking back. There was that strange sense of coming home. Once Paranor had been the home of the Druids. But the other Druids were gone now, and this valley felt more like home than the Keep. All things began and ended here. It was here that he returned to find the sleep that renewed his life each time his journeys through the Four Lands were finished, with his mortal shell hung half within this world and half within the world of death. Here both worlds touched, a small crossing point that gave him some brief access to all that had been and all that would ever be. Most important of all, he would find his father here.

Trapped, exiled, and waiting to be delivered!

He blocked the thought from his mind. Dark eyes lifted briefly to the faint lightening of the eastern sky, then dropped again to the lake. Shea Ohmsford had come here once, many years ago, with his half brother Flick and the others of the small company who had gone in search of the Sword of Shannara. It had been prophesied that one of their number would be lost, and so it had happened. Shea had been swept over the falls below the Dragon’s Crease. The Druid remembered the mistrust and suspicion the others had exhibited toward him. Yet he had been fond of Shea, of Flick, and of Wil Ohmsford. Shea had been almost like a son to him-would have been, perhaps, had he been permitted to have a son. Wil Ohmsford had been more a comrade-in-arms, sharing the responsibility for the search that would restore the Ellcrys and save the Elves.

His dark face creased thoughtfully. Now there was Brin, a girl with power that surpassed anything that her forebears had possessed in their time. What would she be to him?

He had reached the edge of the lake, and he came to a halt. He stood for a moment looking down into the depthless water, wishing...Then slowly he lifted his arms skyward, power radiating out from his body, and the Hadeshorn began to churn restlessly. The waters swirled faster, beginning to boil and hiss, and spray rose skyward. All about the Druid, the empty valley shuddered and rumbled as if awakened from a long, dreamless sleep. Then the cries rose, low and terrible, from out of the, depths of the lake.

Come to me, the Druid called soundlessly. Be free.

The cries rose higher, shrill and less than human-imprisoned souls calling out in their bondage, straining to be free. The whole of the darkened valley filled with their wail, and the spray of the Hadeshorn’s murky waters hissed with sharp relief.

Come!

From out of the roiling dark waters the shade of Bremen lifted, its thin, skeletal body a transparent gray against the night, shrouded and bent with age. Out of the waters, the terrible form rose to stand upon the surface with Allanon. Slowly the Druid lowered his arms, black robes wrapping tight as if for warmth; within his cowl, his dark face lifted to find the empty, sightless eyes of his father.

I am here.

The arms of the shade lifted then. Though they did not touch him, Allanon felt their cold embrace wrap about him like death. Slow and anguished, his father’s voice reached out to him.

The age ends. The circle is closed.-

The chill within him deepened, froze him as ice. The words ran on together as one, and though he heard them all, each in painful detail, they were strung and tightened like knots upon a line. He listened to them all in silent desperation, afraid as he had never been afraid, understanding at last what was meant to be, must be, and would be.

In his hard, black eyes, there were tears.

In frightened silence, Brin Ohmsford and Rone Leah stood where the Druid had left them and watched the emergence of the shade of Bremen from the depths of the Hadeshorn. Cold sliced through them, borne not on some errant wind, for there was none, but by the coming of the shade. Together they faced it, watched it stand before Allanon, tattered and skeletal; and saw its arms lift as if to embrace and draw the Druid’s black form downward. They could near nothing of its words; the air about them filled with the shrill cries let free from the lake. The rock shuddered and groaned beneath their feet. If they had been able, they would have fled and not looked back. At that moment, they were certain that death had been set loose to walk among them.

Then abruptly it was ended. The shade of Bremen turned, sinking slowly back into the murky waters. The cries surged higher, a frantic wail of anguish, then died into silence. The lake churned and boiled anew for a brief instant, then settled back, the waters swirling once again with placid calm.

In the east, the crest of the sun broke over the ragged edge of the Dragon’s Teeth, silver gray light spilling down through the dying night shadows.

Brin heard Rone exhale sharply, and her hand reached over to grip his. At the edge of the Hadeshorn, Allanon dropped to his knees, head bowed.

“Rone!” she whispered harshly and started forward. The highlander seized her arm in warning, remembering what the Druid had told them, but she pulled free, racing for the lake. Instantly he was after her.

Together they rushed to the Druid, slid to a halt on the loose rock, and bent down beside him. His eyes were closed, and his dark face was pale. Brin reached for one great hand and found it as cold as ice. The Druid seemed to be in a trance. The Valegirl glanced hesitantly at Rone. The highlander shrugged. Ignoring him, she put her hands on the big man’s shoulders and gently shook him.

“Allanon,” she said softly.

The dark eyes flickered open; met hers. For an instant she saw clear through him. There was a terrible heedless anguish in his eyes. There was fear. And there was disbelief. It shocked her so that she moved back from him quickly. Then all that she had seen disappeared; in its place there was anger.

“I told you not to move.” He pushed himself roughly to his feet.

His anger meant nothing, and she ignored it. “What happened, Allanon? What did you see?”

He said nothing for a moment, his eyes straying back across the murky green waters of the lake. His head shook slowly. “Father,” he whispered.

Brin glanced hurriedly at Rone. The highlander frowned.

She tried again, one hand touching lightly the Druid’s sleeve. “What has he told you?”

Depthless black eyes fixed upon her own. “That time slips away from us, Valegirl. That we are hunted on all sides, and that it shall be thus until the end. That end is determined, but he will not tell me what it is. He will only tell me this-that it will come, that you will see it, and that for our cause you are both savior and destroyer.”

Brin stared at him. “What does that mean, Allanon?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Very helpful.” Rone straightened and looked away into the mountains.

Brin kept her eyes on the Druid. There was something more. “What else did he say, Allanon?”

But again the Druid shook his head. “Nothing more. That was all.”

He was lying! Brin knew it instantly. Something more had passed between them, something dark and terrible that he was not prepared to reveal. The thought frightened her, the certainty of it an omen that, like her father and her great-grandfather before her, she was to be used to a purpose she did not comprehend.

Her thoughts snapped back to what he had said before. Savior and destroyer to their cause-she would be both, the shade had said. But how could that be?

“One other thing he told me,” Allanon said suddenly-but Brin sensed at once it was not the thing he kept hidden. “Paranor is in the hands of the Mord Wraiths. They have penetrated its locks and broken through the magic that guards its passages. Two nights earlier it fell. Now they search its halls for the Druid histories and the secrets of the ancients. What they find will be used to enhance the power they already possess.”

He faced them each in turn. “And they will find them, sooner or later, if they are not stopped. That must not be allowed to happen.”

“You don’t expect us to stop them, do you?” Rone asked quickly.

The black eyes narrowed. “There is no one else.”

The highlander flushed. “Just how many of them are there?”

“A dozen Wraiths. A company of Gnomes.”

Rone was incredulous. “And we’re going to stop them? You and me and Brin? Just the three of us? Exactly how are we supposed to do that?”

There was a sudden, terrible anger in the Druid’s eyes. Rone Leah sensed that he had gone a step too far, but there was no help for it now. He stood his ground as the big man came up against him.

“Prince of Leah, you have doubted me from the first,” Allanon said. “I let that pass because you care for the Valegirl and came as her protector. But no more. Your constant questioning of my purpose and of the need I see has reached its end! There is little sense to it when your mind is already decided against me!”

Rone kept his voice steady. “I am not decided against you. I am decided for Brin. Where the two conflict, I stand with her, Druid.”

“Then stand with her you shall!” the other thundered and wrenched the Sword of Leah from its scabbard where it lay strapped across the highlander’s back. Rone went white, certain that the big man meant to kill him. Brin darted forward, crying out, but the Druid’s hand lifted quickly to stop her. “Stay, Valegirl. This lies between me and the Prince of Leah.”

His eyes fixed on Rone, harsh and penetrating. “Would you protect her, highlander, as I might myself? If it were possible, would stand as my equal?”

Rone’s face hardened with determination across a mask of fear. “I would.”

Allanon nodded. “Then I shall give you the power to do so.”

One great hand fastened securely on Rone’s arm, and he propelled the highlander effortlessly to the edge of the Hadeshorn. There he returned the Sword of Leah and pointed to the murky green waters.

“Dip the blade of the sword into the waters, Prince of Leah,” he commanded. “But keep your hand and the pommel clear. Even the smallest touch of the Hadeshorn to mortal flesh is death.”

Rone Leah stated at him uncertainly.

“Do as I say!” the Druid snapped.

Rone’s jaw tightened. Slowly he dropped the blade of the Sword of Leah until it was completely submerged within the swirling waters of the lake. It passed downward without effort-as if there were no bottom to the lake and the shoreline marked the edge of a sheer drop. As the metal touched the lake, the waters about it began to boil softly, hissing and gurgling as if acid ate the metal clean. Frightened, Rone nevertheless forced himself to hold the blade steady within the waters.

“Enough,” the Druid told him. “Draw it out.”

Slowly Rone lifted the sword clear of the lake. The blade, once polished iron, had gone black; the waters of the Hadeshorn clung to its surface, swirling about it as if alive.

“Rone!” Brin whispered in horror.

The highlander held the sword steady before him, blade extended away from his body, eyes fixed on the water that spun and wove across the metal surface.

“Now stand fast!” Allanon ordered, one arm lifting free of the black robes. “Stand fast, Prince of Leah!”

Blue fire spurted out from the fingers of his hand in a thin, dazzling line. It ran all along the blade, seering, burning, igniting water and metal, and fusing them as one. Blue fire flared in a burst of incandescent light, yet no heat passed from the blade into the handle. While Rone Leah averted his eyes, he held the sword firm.

An instant later it was done, the fire was gone, and the Druid’s arm lowered once more. Rone Leah looked down at his sword. The blade was clean, a polished and glistening black, the edges hard and true.

“Look closely, Prince of Leah,” Allanon told him.

He did as he was asked, and Brin bent close beside him. Together they stared into the black, mirrored surface. Deep within the metal, murky green pools of light swirled lazily.

Allanon stepped close. “It is the magic of life and death mixed as one. It is power that now belongs to you, highlander; it becomes your responsibility. You are to be as much Brin Ohmsford’s protector as I. You are to have power such as I. This sword shall give it to you.”

“How?” Rone asked softly.

“As with all swords, this one both cuts and parries-not flesh and blood or iron and stone, but magic. The evil magic of the Mord Wraiths. Cut through or blocked away, such magic shall not pass. Thus you have committed yourself. You are to be the shield that stands before this girl now and until this journey ends. You would be her protector, and I have made you so.”

“But why...why would you give me...?” Rone stammered.

But the Druid simply turned and began to walk away. Rone stared after him, a stunned look on his face.

“This is unfair, Allanon!” Brin shouted at the retreating figure, angered suddenly by what he had done to Rone. She started after him. “What right have you...?”

She never finished. There was a sudden, terrifying explosion and she was lifted off her feet and thrown to the valley floor. A whirling mass of red fire engulfed Allanon and he disappeared.

Miles to the south, his body fatigued and aching, Jair Ohmsford stumbled from night’s shadows into a dawn of eerie mist and half-light. Trees and blackness seemed to fall away, pushed aside like a great curtain, and the new day was there. It was vast and empty, a monstrous vault of heavy mist that shut away all the world within its depthless walls. Fifty yards from where he stood, the mist began and all else ended. Sleep-filled eyes stared blankly, seeing the path of mottled deadwood and greenish water that stretched that short distance into the mist, yet not understanding what it was that had happened.

“Where are we?” he murmured.

“Mist Marsh,” Slanter muttered at his elbow. Jair glanced over at the Gnome dumbly, and the Gnome stared back at him with eyes as tired as his own. “We’ve cut its border too close-wandered into a pocket. We’ll have to backtrack around it.”

Jair nodded, trying to organize his scattered thoughts. Garet Jax appeared suddenly beside him, black and silent. The hard, empty eyes passed briefly across his own, then out into the swamp. Wordlessly, the Weapons Master nodded to Slanter, and the Gnome turned back. Jair trailed after. There was no sign of weariness in the eyes of Garet Jax.

They had walked all night, an endless tiring march through the maze of the Black Oaks. It was little more than a distant, clouded memory now in the Valeman’s mind, a fragmented bit of time lost in exhaustion. Only his determination kept him on his feet. Even fear had lost its hold over him after a time, the threat of pursuit no longer a thing of immediacy. It seemed that he must have slept even while walking, for he could remember nothing of what had passed. Yet there had been no sleep, he knew. There had been only the march.

A hand yanked him back from the swamp’s edge as he strayed too close. “Watch where you walk, Valeman.” It was Garet Jax next to him.

He mumbled something in response and stumbled on. “He’s dead on his feet,” he heard Slanter growl, but there was no response. He rubbed his eyes. Slanter was right. His strength was almost gone. He could not go on much longer.

Yet he did. He went on for hours, it seemed, trudging through the mist and the gray half-light, stumbling blindly after Slanter’s blocky form, vaguely aware of the silent presence of Garet Jax at his elbow. All sense of time slipped from him. He was conscious only of the fact that he was still on his feet and that he was still walking. One step followed the next, one foot the other, and each time it was a separate and distinct effort. Still the path wore on.

Until...

“Confounded muck!” Slanter was muttering, and suddenly the entire swamp seemed to explode upward. Water and slime geysered into the air, raining down on the startled Valeman. A roar shattered the dawn’s silence, harsh and piercing, and something huge rose up almost on top of Jair.

“Log Dweller!” he heard Slanter shriek.

Jair stumbled back, confused and frightened, aware of the massive thing that lifted before him, of a body scaled and dripping with the swamp, of a head that seemed all snout and teeth gaping open, and of clawed limbs reaching. He stumbled back, frantic now, but his legs would not carry him, too numb with fatigue to respond as they should. The huge thing was atop him, its shadow blocking away even the half-light, its breath fetid and raw.

Then something hurtled into him from one side, bowling him over, propelling him clear of the monster’s claws. In a daze, he saw Slanter standing where he had stood, short sword drawn, swinging wildly at the massive creature that reached down for him. But the sword was a pitifully inadequate weapon. The monster blocked it away and sent it spinning from the Gnome’s grasp. In the next instant one great, clawed hand fastened about Slanter’s body.

“Slanter!” Jair screamed, struggling to regain his feet.

Garet Jax was already moving. He sprang forward, a blurred shadow, thrusting the black staff into the creature’s gaping jaws and ramming it deep into the soft tissue of the throat. The Log Dweller roared in pain, jaws snapping shut upon the staff and breaking it apart. The clawed hands reached for the fragments caught in its throat, dropping Slanter back to the earth.

Again Garet Jax leaped up against the creature, his short sword drawn. So quickly that Jair could scarcely follow, he was upon the monster’s shoulder and past the grasping claws. He buried the sword deep in the Log Dweller’s under-throat. Dark blood spurted forth. Then swiftly he sprang clear. The Log Dweller was hurt now, pain evident in its wounded bellow. It turned with a lurch and stumbled blindly back into the mist and the dark.

Slanter was struggling back up again, dazed and shaken, but Garet Jax came instead. to Jair, hauling him quickly to his feet. The Valeman’s eyes were wide, and he stared at the Weapons Master in awe.

“I never saw...I never saw anyone move...so fast!” he stammered.

Garet Jax ignored him. With one hand fastened securely on his collar, he pulled the Valeman into the trees, and Slanter followed hurriedly after.

In seconds; the clearing was behind them.

Red fire burned all about the Druid, wrapping him in crimson coils and flaring out wickedly against the gray light of dawn. Dazed and half-blinded by the explosion, Brin struggled to her knees and shielded her eyes. Within the fire, the Druid hunched down against the shimmering black rock of the valley floor, a faint blue aura holding back the flames that had engulfed him. A shield, Brin realized-his protection against the horror that would destroy him.

Desperately she sought the maker of that horror and found it not twenty yards away. There, stark against the sun’s faint gold as it slipped from beneath the horizon, a tall black form stood silhouetted, arms raised and leveled, with the red fire spurting forth. A Mord Wraith! She knew immediately what it was. It had come upon them without a sound, caught them unawares, and struck down the Druid. With no chance to defend himself, Allanon was alive now only through instinct.

Brin surged to her feet. She screamed frantically at the black thing that attacked him, but it did not move, nor did the fire waver. In a steady, ceaseless stream, the fire spurted forth from the outstretched hands to where the Druid crouched, whirling all about his folded body and hammering down against the faint blue shield that yet held it back. Crimson light flared and reflected skyward from the mirror surface of the valley rock, and the whole of the world contained within turned to blood.

Then Rone Leah rushed forward, springing past Brin to stand before her like a crouched beast.

“Devil!” he howled in fury.

He swept up the black metal blade of the Sword of Leah, giving no thought in that moment to who it was he chose to aid or for whose sake he so willingly placed his own life in danger. He was in that moment the great-grandson of Menion Leah, as quick and reckless as his ancestor had ever thought to be, and instinct ruled his reason. Crying out the battle cry of his forebears for centuries gone, he attacked.

“Leah! Leah!”

He leaped into the fire, and the sword swept down, severing the ring that bound Allanon. Instantly, the flames shattered as if made of glass, falling from the Druid’s crouched form in shards. The fire still flew from the Mord Wraith’s hands; but like iron to a magnet, it was now drawn to the blade wielded by the redhaired highlander. It rushed in a sweep to the black metal and burned downward. Yet no fire touched Rone’s hands; it was as if the sword. absorbed it. The Prince of Leah stood squared away between Wraith and Druid, the Sword of Leah held vertically before him, crimson fire dancing off the blade.

Allanon rose up, as black and forbidding as the thing that had stalked him, free now of the flames that had held him bound. Lean arms lifted from beneath the robes, and blue fire exploded outward. It caught the Mord Wraith, lifted it clear of its feet, and threw it backward as if struck by a ram. Black robes flew wide, and a terrible, soundless shriek reverberated in Brin’s mind. Once more the Druid fire flared outward, and an instant later the black thing it sought had been turned to dust.

Fire died into trailing wisps of smoke and scattered ash, and silence filled the Valley of Shale. The Sword of Leah sank, black iron clanging sharply against the rock as it dropped. Rone Leah’s head lowered; a stunned look was in his eyes as they sought out Brin. She came to him, wrapped her arms about him and held him.

“Brin” he whispered softly. “This sword...the power...”

He could not finish. Allanon’s lean hand fastened gently on his shoulder.

“Do not be frightened, Prince of Leah.” The Druid’s voice was tired, but reassuring. “The power truly belongs to you. You have shown that here. You are indeed the Valegirl’s protector-and for this one time at least, mine as well.”

The hand lingered a moment longer, then the big man was moving back along the path that had brought them in.

“There was only the one,” he called back to them. “Had there been others, we would have seen them by now. Come. Our business here is finished.”

“Allanon...” Brin started to call after him.

“Come, Valegirl. Time slips from us. Paranor needs whatever aid we can offer. We must go there at once.”

Without a backward glance, he began to climb from the valley. Brin and Rone Leah followed in silent resignation.

10

It was midmorning before Jair and his companions finally broke clear of the Black Oaks. Before them, rolling countryside stretched away-hill country to the north, lowlands to the south. They took little time admiring either. Exhausted almost to the point of collapse, they took just enough time to locate a sheltering clump of broad-leaf maple turned brilliant crimson by autumn’s touch. In seconds they were asleep.

Jair had no idea whether either of his companions thought to keep watch during the time he slept, but it was Garet Jax who shook him awake as dusk began to settle in. Wary of being so close yet to the Mist Marsh and the Oaks, the Weapons Master wanted to find a safer place to spend the coming night. The Battlemound Lowlands were fraught with dangers all their own, so the little company turned north into the hills. Somewhat refreshed by their half-day sleep, they walked on almost to midnight before settling in to sleep until dawn within a grove of wild fruit trees partially overgrown with brush. This time Jair insisted at the outset that the three share the watch.

The following day, they traveled north again. By late afternoon, they had reached the Silver River. Clear and sparkling in the fading sunlight, it wound its way west through tree-lined banks and rocky shoals. For several hours after, the three travelers followed the river east toward the Anar, and by nightfall they were well away from the Marsh and the Oaks. They had encountered no other journeyers during their march, and there had been no sign of either Gnomes or black walkers. It appeared that for the moment, at least, they were safe from any pursuit.

It was night again by the time they found a small pocket sheltered by maple and walnut trees on a ridge above the river and made their camp. They decided to risk a fire, built one that was small and smokeless, ate a hot meal, and settled back to watch the coals die into ash. The night was clear and warm; overhead, stars began to wink into view, clustering in brilliant patterns across the dark backdrop of the sky. All about them, night birds sang, insects hummed, and the faint rush of the river’s swift waters murmured in the distance. Drying leaves and brush gave a sweet and musty smell to the cool dark.

“Think I’ll gather up some wood,” Slanter announced suddenly after being silent for a time. He pushed himself heavily to his feet.

“I’ll help,” Jair offered.

The Gnome shot him a look of annoyance. “Did I ask for any help? I can gather wood by myself, boy.”

Scowling, he trudged off into the dark.

Jair leaned back again, folding his arms across his chest. That typified the way things had been ever since the three of them had started out-no one saying much of anything and saying what they did without a great deal of warmth. With Garet Jax, it didn’t matter. He was taciturn by nature, so his refusal to contribute anything in the way of conversation was not surprising. But Slanter was a garrulous fellow, and his uncommunicative posture was disquieting. Jair much preferred Slanter the way he had been before-brash, talkative, almost like a rough uncle. He wasn’t like that now. He seemed to have withdrawn into himself and shut himself away from the Valeman-as if traveling with Jair had become almost distasteful.

Well, in a way it was, Jair supposed, reflecting on the matter. After all, Slanter hadn’t wanted to come in the first place. He had only come because Jair had shamed him into it. Here he was, a Gnome traveling with one fellow who had been his prisoner before and another who didn’t trust him a wink, all for the sole purpose of seeing to it that they safely reached a people who were at war with his own. And he wouldn’t have been doing that, except that, in helping Jair, he had compromised his loyalties so that he was now little better than an outcast.

Then, too, there was the matter of the Log Dweller. Slanter had come to Jair’s aid in an act of bravery that the Valeman still found mystifying-an act not at all in character for a fellow as opportunistic and self-centered as Slanter-and look what had happened. Slanter had failed to stave off the Log Dweller, had himself become a victim, and had been forced to rely on Garet Jax to save him. That must rankle. Slanter was a tracker, and trackers were a proud breed. Trackers were supposed to protect the people they guided, not the other way around.

Sparks shot out suddenly from the little fire, drawing his attention. A dozen feet away, stretched out against an old log, Garet Jax stirred and glanced over. Those strange eyes sought his, and Jair found himself wondering once more about the character of the Weapons Master.

“Guess I should thank you again,” he said, drawing his knees up to his chest” “for saving me from that thing in the Marsh.”

The other man looked back at the fire. Jair watched for a moment, trying to decide if he should say anything else.

“Can I ask you something?” he said finally.

The Weapons Master shrugged his indifference.

“Why did you save me-not just from the thing in the Marsh, but back there in the Oaks when the Gnomes had me prisoner?” The hard eyes suddenly fixed on him again, and he hurried his words before he had time to think better of them. “It’s just that I don’t quite understand what made you do it. After all, you didn’t know me. You could have just gone your own way.”

Garet Jax shrugged again. “I did go my own way.”

“What do you mean?”

“My way happened to be your way. That’s what I mean.”

Jair frowned slightly. “But you didn’t know where I was being taken.”

“East. Where else would a Gnome patrol with a prisoner be going?”

Jair’s frown deepened. He couldn’t argue with that. Still, none of what the Weapons Master had said did much to explain why he had bothered to rescue Jair in the first place.

“I still don’t see why you helped me,” he pressed.

A faint smile crossed the other’s face. “I don’t appear to you to possess a particularly humanitarian nature, is that it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. Anyway, you’re right-I don’t.”

Jair hesitated, staring at him.

“I said I don’t,” Garet Jax repeated. The smile was gone. “I wouldn’t stay alive very long if I did. And staying alive is what I do best.”

There was a long silence. Jair didn’t know where else to go with the conversation. The Weapons Master pushed himself forward, leaning into the fire’s warmth.

“But you interest, me,” he said slowly. His gaze shifted to Jair. “I suppose that’s why I rescued you. You interest me, and not many things do that anymore...”

He trailed off, a distant look in his eyes. But an instant later it was gone, and he was studying Jair once more. “There you were, bound and gagged and under guard by an entire Gnome patrol armed to the teeth. Very odd. They were frightened of you. That intrigued me. I wanted to know what it was about you that frightened them so.”

He shrugged. “So I thought it was worth the trouble to set you free.”

Jair stared at him. Curiosity? Was that why Garet Jax had come to his aid-out of curiosity? No, he thought at once, it was more than that.

“They were frightened of the magic,” he said suddenly. “Would you like to see how it works?”

Garet Jax looked back at the fire. “Later, maybe. The journey’s not done yet.” He seemed totally without interest.

“Is that why you’re taking me with you to Culhaven?” Jair pressed.

“In part.”

He let the words hang. Jair glanced over at him uneasily.

“What’s the rest?”

The Weapons Master did not respond. He did not even look at the Valeman. He just leaned back against the fallen log, wrapped himself in the black travel cloak and watched the fire.

Jair tried a different approach. “What about Slanter? Why did you help him? You could have left him to the Log Dweller.”

Garet Jax sighed. “I could have. Would that have made you any happier?”

“Of course not. What do you mean?”

“You seem to have formed an opinion of me as a man who does nothing for anyone without some personal benefit. You shouldn’t believe everything you hear. You’re young, not stupid.”

Jair flushed. “Well, you don’t like Slanter very much, do you?”

“I don’t know him well enough to like or dislike him,” the other replied. “I admit that for the most part I’m not particularly fond of Gnomes. But this one twice was willing to place himself in danger for your sake. That makes him worth saving.”

He glanced over suddenly. “Besides, you like him and you don’t want anything to happen to him. Am I right?”

“You’re right.”

“Well, that in itself seems rather curious, don’t you think? As I said before, you interest me.”

Jair nodded thoughtfully. “You interest me, too.”

Garet Jax turned away. “Good. We’ll both have something to think about on our way to Culhaven.”

He let the matter drop and Jair did the same. The Valeman was by no means satisfied that he understood what it was that had persuaded the Weapons Master to aid either Slanter or himself, but it was obvious he would learn nothing more this night. Garet Jax was an enigma that would not easily be solved.

The fire had almost died away by now, causing Jair to remember that Slanter had gone in search of wood and not yet returned. He pondered for a moment whether or not he should do anything about it, then turned once more to Garet Jax.

“You don’t think anything could have happened to Slanter, do you?” he asked. “He’s been gone quite a while.”

The Weapons Master shook his head. “He can look after himself.” He rose and kicked at the fire, scattering the wood embers so that the flames died. “We don’t need the fire any longer, anyway.”

Returning to his spot next to the fallen log, he rolled himself in his travel cloak and was asleep in seconds. Jair lay silently for a time, listening to the man’s heavy breathing and staring out into the dark. Finally he, too, rolled into his cloak and settled back. He was still a bit worried about Slanter, but he guessed that Garet Jax was right when he said the Gnome could look out for himself. Besides, Jair had grown suddenly sleepy. Breathing the warm night air deeply, he let his eyes close. For a moment, his mind wandered free and he found himself thinking of Brin, Rone, and Allanon, wondering where they were by now.

Then the thoughts scattered and he was asleep.

On a rise that overlooked the Silver River, lost in the shadows of an old willow, Slanter was thinking, too. He was thinking that it was time to move on. He had come this far because that confounded boy had shamed him into it. Imagine, offering him a bribe-that boy-as if he would scoop to accepting bribes from boys! Still, it was well meant, he supposed. The boy’s desire to have his company had been genuine enough. And he did rather like the boy. There was a lot of toughness in the youngster.

The Gnome pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms about them thoughtfully. Nevertheless, this was a fool’s mission. He was walking right into the camp of his enemy. Oh, the Dwarves weren’t a personal enemy, of course. He didn’t care a whit about Dwarves one way or the other. But just at the moment, they were at war with the Gnome tribes, and he doubted that it made a whole lot of difference what his feelings were about them. Seeing that he was a Gnome would be enough.

He shook his head. The risk was just too great. And it was all for that boy, who probably didn’t know what he wanted from one day to the next, anyway. Besides, he had said he would take the boy as far as the border-of the Anar, and they were almost there now. By nightfall of the coming day, they would probably reach the forests. He had kept his part of the bargain.

So. He took a deep breath and hauled himself to his feet. Time to be moving on. That was the way he had always lived his life-the way trackers were. The boy might be upset at first, but he would get over it. And Slanter doubted the boy would be in much danger with Garet Jax looking after him. Fact was, the boy would probably be better off that way.

He shook his head irritably. No reason to be calling Jair a boy, either. He was older than the Gnome had been when he first left-home. Jair could look after himself if he had to. Didn’t really need Slanter or the Weapons Master or anyone else. Not so long as he had that magic to protect him.

Slanter hesitated a moment longer, thinking it through once more. He wouldn’t find out anything about the magic, of course-that was too bad. The magic intrigued him, the way the boy’s voice could...No, his mind was made up. A Gnome in the Eastland had no business being anywhere near Dwarves. He was best off sticking to his own people. And now he could no longer do even that. Best thing for it was to slip back to the camp, pick up his gear, cross the river, and head north into the borderlands.

He frowned. Maybe it was just that the Valeman seemed like a boy...

Slanter, get on with it!

Quickly he turned about and disappeared into the night.

Dreams flooded Jair Ohmsford’s sleep. He rode on horseback over hills, across grasslands, and through deep and shadowed forests, with the wind screaming in his ears. Brin rode at his side, her midnight hair impossibly long and flying. They spoke no words as they rode, yet each knew the other’s thoughts and lived within the other’s mind. On and on they raced, passing through lands they had never seen, vibrant and sprawling and wild. Danger lurked all about them: a Log Dweller, massive and reeking of the swamp; Gnomes, their twisted yellow faces leering their evil intentions; Mord Wraiths, no more than ghostly forms, featureless and eerie as they stretched from the dark. There were others, too-shapeless, monstrous things that could not be seen, but only felt, the sense of their presence somehow more terrible than any face could ever be. These beings of evil reached for them, claws and teeth ripping the air, eyes gleaming like coals in blackest night. The beings sought to pull Jair and his sister from their mounts and to tear the life from them. Yet always the things were too slow, an instant too late to achieve their purpose, as the swift horses carried Jair and Brin beyond their reach.

Yet the chase wore on. It did not end as a chase should end. It simply went on, an endless run through countryside that swept to the horizon. Though the creature’s hunting them never quite managed to catch up to them, still there were always others lying in wait ahead. Exhilaration filled the pair at first. They were wild and free and nothing could touch them, brother and sister a match for all that sought to drag them down. But after a time, something changed. The change crept over them gradually, an insidious thing, until at last it lodged itself fully within them and they knew it for what it was. It had no name. It whispered to them of what must be: the race they ran could not be won for the things they ran from were a part of themselves; no horse, however swift, could carry them to safety. Look at what they were, the voice whispered, and they would see the truth.

Fly! Jair howled in fury, and urged his horse to run faster. But the voice whispered on, and about them the sky went steadily darker, the color faded from the land, and everything turned gray and dead. Fly! he screamed. He turned then to find Brin, sensing somehow that all was not well with her. The horror sprang to life before him and Brin was no longer there; she had been overtaken and consumed, swallowed by the dark monster that reached...that reached...

Jair’s eyes snapped open. Sweat bathed his face, and his clothing was damp beneath the cloak in which he lay wrapped. Stars twinkled softly overhead, and the night was still and at peace. Yet the dream lingered in his mind, a vivid, living thing.

Then he realized that the fire was burning brightly once more, its flames crackling on new wood in the dark. Someone had rebuilt it.

Slanter...?

Hurriedly he threw off the cloak and sat up, his eyes searching. Slanter was nowhere to be seen. A dozen feet away, Garet Jax slept undisturbed. Nothing had changed-nothing save the fire.

Then a figure stepped from the night, a thin and frail old man, his bent and aged frame clothed in white robes. Silver white hair and beard framed a weathered, gentle face, and a walking stick guided his way. Smiling warmly, he came into the light and stopped.

“Hello, Jair,” he greeted.

The Valeman stared. “Hello.”

“Dreams can be visions of what is to come, you know. And dreams can be warnings of what we must beware.”

Jair was speechless. The old man turned and came about the fire, picking his way with care until at last he stood before the Valeman. Then he lowered himself gingerly to the ground, a wisp of life that a strong wind might blow from the earth.

“Do you know me, Jair?” the old man asked, his voice a soft murmur in the silence. “Let your memory tell you.”

“I don’t...” Jair started to say and then stopped. As if the suggestion had triggered something deep within him, Jair knew at once who it was that sat across from him.

“Speak my name.” The other smiled.

Jair swallowed. “You are the King of the Silver River.”

The old man nodded. “I am what you name me. I am also your friend, just as I once was friend to your father and to your great-grandfather before him-men with lives intertwined in purpose, given over to the land and her needs.”

Jair stared at him wordlessly, then suddenly remembered the sleeping Garet Jax. Would not the Weapons Master waken...?

“He will sleep while we talk,” his unspoken question was answered. “No one comes to disturb us this night, child of life.”

Child? Jair stiffened. But in the next instant his anger was gone, melted by what he saw in the other’s face-the warmth, the gentleness, the love. With this old man there could be no anger or harsh feelings. There could be only respect.

“Hear me now,” the aged voice whispered. “I have need of you, Jair. Let your thoughts have ears and eyes that you may understand.”

Then everything about the Valeman seemed to dissolve away, and within his mind images began to form. He could hear the old man’s voice speaking to him, the words strangely hushed and sad, giving life to what he saw.

The forests of the Anar lay before him and there was the Ravenshorn, a vast and sprawling mountain range that rose black and stark against a crimson sun. The Silver River wound through its peaks; a thin, bright ribbon of light against the dark rock. He followed its course upriver far into the mountains until at last he had traced it to its source, high within a single, towering peak. There stood a well, its waters spring-fed from deep within the earth, rising through the rock to spill over and begin the long journey west.

But there was something more-something beyond the well and its keep. Below the peak, lost in mist and darkness was a great pit hemmed all about by jagged rock walls. From pit to peak a long and winding stairway rose, a slender thread of stone spiraling upward. Mord Wraiths walked that causeway, dark and furtive in their purpose. One by one they came, at last gaining the peak. There they stood in a row and looked down upon the waters of the. well. Then they advanced as one upon it and touched the waters with their hands. Instantly the water went foul, poisoned and turned from clearest crystal to an ugly black. It ran down out of the mountains, filtering west through the great forests of the Anar where the Dwarves dwelt, then on to the land of the King of the Silver River and to Jair...

Poisoned! The word screamed suddenly in the Valeman’s mind. The Silver River had been poisoned, and the land was dying...

The images were gone in a rush. Jair blinked. The old man was before him again, his weathered face smiling gently.

“From the bowels of the Maelmord the Mord Wraiths climbed the walk they call the Croagh to Heaven’s Well, the life-source of the Silver River,” he whispered. “Bit by bit, the poison has grown worse. Now the waters threaten to go bad altogether. When that happens, Jair Ohmsford, all of the life they serve and sustain, from the deep Anar west to the Rainbow Lake, will begin to die.”

“But can’t you stop it?” the Valeman demanded angrily, wincing with pain from the memory of what he had been shown. “Can’t you go to them and stop them before it is too late? Surely your power is greater than theirs!”

The King of the Silver River sighed. “Within my own land, I am the way and the life. But only there. Beyond, I am without strength. I do what I can to keep the waters clean within the Silver River country; but I can do nothing for the lands beyond. Nor do I have power enough to withstand forever the poison that seeps steadily down. Sooner or later, I will fail.”

There was a moment’s silence as the two faced each other in the flickering light of the campfire. Jair’s mind raced.

“What about Brin?” he exclaimed suddenly. “She and Allanon are going to the source of the Mord Wraiths’ power to destroy it! When they have done that, won’t the poisoning stop?”

The old man’s eyes found his. “I have seen your sister and the Druid in my dreams, child. They will fail. They are leaves in the wind. Both will be lost.”

Jair went cold. He faced the old man in stunned silence. Lost Brin, gone forever...

“No,” he murmured harshly. “No, you’re wrong.”

“She can be saved,” the gentle voice reached out to him suddenly. “You can save her.”

“How?” Jair whispered.

“You must go to her.”

“But I don’t know where she is!”

“You must go to where you know she will be. I have chosen you to go in my place as savior to the land and its life. There are threads that bind us all, you see, but they are knotted. The thread you hold is the one that will pull the rest free.”

Jair didn’t know what the old man was saying and he didn’t care. He just wanted to help Brin. “Tell me what I have to do.”

The old man nodded. “You must begin by giving to me the Elfstones.”

The Elfstones! Again Jair had forgotten he had them. Their magic was the power he needed to break apart the Mord Wraith magic and any evil they might conjure up to stop him!

“Can you make them work for me?” the Valeman asked hurriedly, drawing them from his tunic: “Can you show me how to unlock the power?”

But the King shook his head. “I cannot. Their power does not belong to you. It belongs only to one to whom the magic has been freely given, and the magic was not given to you.”

Jair slumped back dejectedly. “Then what am I to do? What use are the Stones if...?”

“Of much use, Jair,” the other interrupted gently. “But you must first give them to me. For good.”

Jair stared at him. For the first, time since the old man had appeared, the Valeman hesitated to believe. He had salvaged the Elfstones from his home at the risk of his life. Time and again, he had protected them, all for the sole purpose of finding a way to use them to aid his family against the Mord Wraiths. Now he was being asked to give up the only real weapon he possessed. How could he do such a thing?

“Give them to me,” the soft voice repeated.

Jair hesitated a moment longer, wrestling with his indecision. Then slowly he passed them to the King of the Silver River.

“Well done,” the old man commended. “You, show character and judgment worthy of your forebears. It was for these qualities that I chose you. And these qualities will sustain you.”

He slipped the Elfstones within his robes and brought forth a different pouch. “This pouch contains Silver Dust-life restorer to the waters of the Silver River. You must carry it to Heaven’s Well and scatter it into the poisoned waters. Do that, and the river will be clean again. Then you will find a way to give your sister back to herself.”

Give Brin back to herself? Jair shook his head slowly. What did the old man mean by that?

“She will lose herself.” The King of the Silver River again seemed able to read his thoughts. “Yours is the voice that will help her to find the pathway back.”

Jair still did not understand. He started to ask the questions that would clear away his confusion, but the old man shook his head slowly.

“Listen to what I say.” One thin arm reached out to him and the pouch with the Silver Dust was placed in his hands. “Now we are bound. Trust has been exchanged. So now it can be with magics. Your magic is useless to you, mine equally to me. I keep yours therefore and give you mine.”

Again he reached into the robes. “The Elfstones are three in number, one each for the mind and body and heart-magics that entwine and form the power of the Stones. Three magics, then, shall you be given. First, this.”

In his hand was a brilliant crystal on a silver chain. He passed it to Jair. “For the mind, a vision crystal. Sing to it, and it will show you the face of your sister, wherever she may be. Use it when you have need of knowing what she is about. And you mill have need of knowing, for you must reach Heaven’s Well before she reaches the Maelmord.” ‘

His hand lifted to Jair’s shoulder. “For the body, strength to see you through on your journey east and to stand against the dangers that will beset you. That strength you shall find in those who will travel with you, for you shall not make this journey alone. A touch of the magic, then, to each. It begins and ends here.” He pointed to the sleeping Garet Jax. “When your need is greatest, he shall always come. He shall be protector to you until you stand at last at Heaven’s Well.”

Once more he turned back to Jair. “And for the heart, child, the final magic-a wish that shall serve you best. One time only you may call upon the wishsong and it shall give you not illusion, but reality. It is the magic that will save your sister. Use it when you stand at Heaven’s Well.”

Jair shook his head slowly. “But how am I to use it? What am I to do?”

“I cannot tell you what you must decide for yourself,” the King of the Silver River replied. “When you have thrown the Silver Dust into the basin at Heaven’s Well and the waters are clear once more, throw the vision crystal after. You must find your answer there.”

He bent forward then, his frail hand lifting. “But be cautioned. You must reach the Well before your sister enters into the Maelmord. It is written that she shall do so, since the Druid’s faith in her magic is well placed. You must be there when that happens.”

“I will,” Jair whispered and clutched the vision crystal tightly.

The old man nodded. “I have placed much trust in you. The lands and the races depend now on you, and you must not fail them. But you have courage. You shall be true. Speak the words, Jair.”

“I shall be true,” the Valeman repeated.

Gingerly the King of the Silver River rose again, a ghost in the night. A great weariness stole suddenly over Jair, pulling him down into his travel cloak. Warmth and comfort seeped slowly through his body.

“You, most of all, are a part of me,” he heard the old man say, the words faint and distant. “Child of life, the magic makes you so. All things change, but the past carries forward and becomes what is to be. Thus it was with your great-grandfather and your father. Thus it is with you.”

He was fading, dissipating like smoke into the firelight. Jair peered after him, but his eyes were so clouded with sleep that he could not seem to make them focus.

“When you awake, all will be as it was save for this-I have come. Sleep now, child. Be at peace.”

Jair’s eyes closed obediently, and he slept.

11

When Jair awoke, dawn had already broken. Sunshine spilled down out of a cloudless blue sky and warmed an earth still damp with morning dew. He stretched lazily and breathed in the smell of bread and meat cooking. Kneeling next to the campfire, his back turned to the Valeman, Garet Jax was preparing breakfast.

Jair glanced about. Slanter was nowhere to be seen.

All will be as it was...

Abruptly he remembered everything that had happened the night gone past and sat up with a start. The King of the Silver River-or had it all been just a dream? He looked down at his hands. There was no vision crystal. When he had fallen back asleep, the crystal-if there really were one-had been clutched in his hands. He felt about the ground for it, then through the travel cloak. Still no crystal. Then it had been a dream. He felt hurriedly for the pockets of his tunic. A bulge in one pocket revealed the presence of the Elfstones-or was it the pouch that contained the Silver Dust? Quickly his hands flew over the rest of his body.

“Looking for something?”

Jair’s head jerked up and he found Garet Jax staring at him. He shook his head hurriedly. “No, I was just...” he stammered.

Then his eyes detected agleam of metal against his chest where the tunic opened in front. He looked down, tucking his chin back. It was a silver chain.

“Do you want something to eat?” the other man asked.

Jair didn’t hear him. It hadn’t been a dream after all, he was thinking. It had been real. It had all happened just as he remembered it. One hand felt down the front of his tunic past the length of the silver chain, touching upon the orb of the crystal fastened at its end.

“Do you want something to eat or not?” Garet Jax repeated, a touch of annoyance in his voice.

“Yes, I...yes, I do,” Jair mumbled, rising and coming over to kneel beside the other. A plate was passed to him, filled with food from the kettle. Masking his excitement, he began to eat.

“Where’s Slanter?” he asked after a moment, recalling once more the absent Gnome.

Garet Jax shrugged. “He never came back. I scouted around for him before breakfast. His tracks led down to the river and then turned west.”

“West?” Jair stopped eating. “But that’s not the way to the Anar.”

The Weapons Master nodded. “I’m afraid your friend decided he had come far enough with us. That’s the trouble with Gnomes-they’re not very reliable.”

Jair felt a twinge of disappointment. Slanter must indeed have decided to go his own way. But why did he have to sneak off like that? Why couldn’t he at least have said something? Jair thought about it a moment longer, then forced himself to resume eating, pushing the disappointment from his mind. He had more immediate problems to concern himself with this morning.

He thought back over everything the King of the Silver River had told him last night. He had a mission to perform. He had to go into the deep Anar, into the Ravenshorn and the lair of the Mord Wraiths to the peak called Heaven’s Well. It would be a long, dangerous journey-even for a trained Hunter. Jair stared hard at the ground. He was going, of course. There was no question about that. But as game and determined as he might be, he had to admit nevertheless that he was far from being a trained Hunter-or a trained anything. He was going to need help with this. But where was he going to find it?

He glanced curiously at Garet Jax. This man shall be your protector, the King of the Silver River had promised. I give to him strength to withstand the dangers that will beset you on your journey. When you have need of him, he shall be there.

Jair frowned. Did Garet Jax know all this? It certainly didn’t appear that way. Obviously the old man hadn’t come to the Weapons Master last night as he had come to Jair. Otherwise the man would have said something by now. That meant it was up to Jair to explain it to him. But how was the Valeman supposed to convince the Weapons Master to come with him into the deep Anar? For that matter, how was he supposed to convince him that he hadn’t simply been dreaming.

He was still mulling the problem over when, to his complete astonishment, Slanter stalked out of the trees.

“Anything left in the kettle?” Slanter asked, scowling at them both.

Wordlessly, Garet Jax handed him a plate. The Gnome dropped the pack he was carrying, sat down next to the fire, and helped himself to a generous portion of the bread and meat. Jair stared at him. He looked haggard and irritable, as if he hadn’t slept all night.

The Gnome caught him staring. “What’s bothering you?” he snapped.

“Nothing.” Jair looked away quickly, then looked back again. “I was just wondering where you’d been.”

Slanter stayed bent over his plate. “I decided to sleep down by the river. Cooler there. Too hot by the fire.” Jair’s eyes strayed down to the discarded pack, and the Gnome’s head jerked up. “Took the pack so I could scout upriver a bit-just in case. Thought I’d be certain that nothing...”

He broke off. “I don’t have to account to you, boy! What’s the difference what I was doing? I’m here now, aren’t I? Let me be!”

He went back to his breakfast, attacking it with a vengeance. Jair glanced furtively at Garet Jax, but the Weapons Master seemed to take no notice. The Valeman turned again to Slanter. He was lying, of course; his tracks led downriver. Garet Jax had said so. Why had he decided to come back?

Unless...

Jair caught himself. The idea was so wild that he could barely conceive of it. But just perhaps the King of the Silver River had used his magic to bring the Gnome back again. He could have done that, Jair thought, and Slanter would never have been the wiser or realized what was being done to him. The old man could have seen that Jair would have need for the tracker-a Gnome who knew the whole of the Eastland.

Then suddenly it occurred to Jair that perhaps the King of the Silver River had brought Garet Jax to him as well-that the Weapons Master had come to his aid in the Black Oaks because the old man had wanted it so. Was that possible? Was that the reason that Garet Jax had freed him-all without realizing it?

Jair sat there in stunned silence, his food forgotten. That would explain the reluctance of both tracker and soldier-of-fortune to discuss the reasons for their actions. They didn’t understand it fully themselves. But if that were true, then Jair, too, might have been brought here by similar manipulation. How much of what had happened to him had been the work of the old man?

Garet Jax finished his breakfast and was kicking out the fire. Slanter, too, was on his feet, wordlessly pulling on the discarded pack. Jair stared at them in turn, wondering what he should do. He knew that he couldn’t just stay silent.

“Time to go,” Garet Jax called over, motioning him up. Slanter was already at the edge of the clearing.

“Wait...wait just a minute.” They turned to stare at him as he climbed slowly to his feet. “I’ve got something to tell you first.”

He told them everything. He had not intended it to happen that way, but telling one thing led to telling another by way of explanation; before he knew it the whole story was out. He told them of Allanon’s visit to the Vale and of his story of the Ildatch, of how Brin and Rone Leah had gone east with the Druid to gain entry into the Maelmord, and lastly of the appearance of the King of the Silver River and of the mission he had given to Jair.

When he had finished, there was a long silence. Garet Jax walked back to the fallen log and sat down, gray eyes intense.

“I am to be your protector?” he asked quietly.

Jair nodded. “He said you would be.”

“What if I were to decide otherwise?”

Jair shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“I have heard some wild tales, but this is the wildest it has ever been my misfortune to suffer through!” Slanter exclaimed suddenly. “What are you up to with all this nonsense? What’s the purpose of it? You don’t think for a minute anyone sitting here believes a word of it, do you?”

“Believe what you want. It’s the truth,” Jair insisted, refusing to back away as the Gnome advanced on him.

“The truth! What do you know about the truth?” Slanter was incredulous. “You spoke with the King of the Silver River, did you? He gave you magic, did he? And now we’re supposed to go traipsing off into the deep Anar, are we? And not just into the Anar, but right into the teeth of the black walkers! Into the Maelmord! You’re mad, boy! That’s the only truth there is in any of this!”

Jair reached into his tunic and brought forth the pouch containing the Silver Dust. “This is the Dust he gave me, Slanter. And here.” He pulled the vision crystal on its silver chain free of his neck. “You see? I have the things he gave me, just as I said. Look for yourself.”

Slanter threw up his hands. “I don’t want to look! I don’t want anything to do with any of this! I don’t even know what I’m doing here!” He wheeled about suddenly. “But I’ll tell you this-I’m not going into the Anar, not with a thousand crystals or a whole mountain of Silver Dust! Find someone else who’s tired of living and leave me be!”

Garet Jax was back on his feet. He came over to Jair, took the pouch from the Valeman’s hand, slipped the drawstrings open, and peered inside. Then he looked up again at Jair.

“Looks like sand to me,” he said.

Jair glanced down hurriedly. Sure enough, the contents of the pouch looked exactly like sand. There was not a sparkle of silver to be seen in the supposed Silver Dust.

“Of course, the color might be a guise to protect against theft,” the Weapons Master mused thoughtfully, a distant look in his eyes.

Slanter was aghast. “You don’t really believe...”

Garet Jax cut him short. “I don’t believe much of anything, Gnome.” His eyes were hard again as they shifted to Jair. “Let’s put this magic to the test. Take out the vision crystal and sing to it.”

Jair hesitated. “I don’t know how.”

“You don’t know how?” Slanter sneered. “Shades!”

Garet Jax didn’t move. “This seems like a good time to learn, doesn’t it?”

Jair flushed and looked down at the crystal. Neither of them believed a word he had told them. He couldn’t really blame them, though. He wouldn’t have believed it himself if it hadn’t happened to him. But it had, and it had been all too convincing not to be real.

He took a deep breath. “I’ll try.”

He began to sing softly to the crystal. He held it cupped within his hands like a fragile thing, the silver chain dangling down through his fingers. He sang without knowing what it was he should sing or how he could bring the crystal to life. Low and gentle, his voice called to it and asked that it show him Brin.

It responded almost instantly. Light flared within his palms, startling him so that he nearly dropped the crystal. A living thing, the light shimmered a brilliant white, expanding until it was the size of a child’s ball. Garet Jax bent close, his lean face intense. Slanter edged his way back from across the clearing.

Then abruptly Brin Ohmsford’s face appeared Within the light, dark and beautiful, framed by mountains whose slopes were stark and towering against a dawn less friendly than their own.

“Brin!” Jair whispered.

He thought for a moment she might reply, so real was her face within the light. Yet her eyes were far distant in their vision, and her ears were closed to his voice. Then the vision faded; in his excitement, Jair had ceased to sing, and the crystal’s magic was spent. The light was gone in the same moment. Jair’s hands cupped the crystal once more.

“Where was she?” he asked hurriedly.

Garet Jax shook his head. “I’m not sure. Perhaps...” But he did not finish.

Jair turned to Slanter, but the Gnome was shaking his head as well. “I don’t know. It happened too fast. How did you do that, boy? It’s that song, isn’t it? It’s that magic you have.”

“And the magic of the King of the Silver River,” Jair added quickly. “Now do you believe me?”

Slanter shook his head glumly. “I’m not going into the Anar,” he muttered.

“I need you, Slanter.”

“You don’t need me. With magic like that, you don’t need anyone.” The Gnome turned away. “Just sing your way into the Maelmord like your sister.”

Jair forced down the anger building within him. He shoved the crystal and the pouch with the Silver Dust back into his tunic. “Then I’ll go alone,” he declared heatedly.

“No need for that quite yet.” Garet Jax swung his pack over his shoulder and started across the clearing once more. “First we’ll see you safely to Culhaven, the Gnome and me. Then you can tell the Dwarves this story of yours. The Druid and your sister should have passed that way by now-or word of their passing reached the Dwarves. In any case, let’s find out if anyone there understands anything of what you’ve been telling us.”

Jair stalked after him hurriedly. “What you’re saying is that you think I made this all up! Listen to me a minute. Why would I do that? What possible reason could I have? Go on, tell me!”

Garet Jax snatched up the Valeman’s cloak and blanket and shoved them at him as they went. “Don’t waste your time telling me what I think,” he replied calmly. “I’ll tell you what I think when I’m ready.

Together they disappeared into the trees, following the trail that led east along the banks of the Silver River. Slanter watched them until they were out of sight, his rough yellow face twisting with displeasure. Then, picking up his own pack, he hastened after, muttering as he went.

12

For the better part of three days, Brin Ohmsford and Rone Leah rode north with Allanon toward the Keep of Paranor. The path chosen by the Druid was long and circuitous, a slow hard journey through country made rugged by steep slides, narrow passes, and choking forest wilderness. But at the same time the path was free of the presence of Gnomes, Mord Wraiths, and other evils that might beset the unwary traveler, and it was for this reason that Allanon had made his choice. Whatever else must be endured on their journey north, he was determined that in the making of that journey he would take no further chances with the life of the Valegirl.

So he did not take them through the Hall of Kings as he had once done with Shea Ohmsford, a match that would have forced him to leave their horses and proceed afoot through the underground caverns that interred the kings of old, where traps could be triggered with every step forward and monsters guarded against all who trespassed. Nor did he take them across the Rabb to the Jannisson Pass, a ride through open country where they might be easily seen and which would take them much too close to the forests of the Eastland and the enemy they sought to avoid. Instead; he took them west along the Mermidon through the deep forests that blanketed the lower slopes. of the Dragon’s Teeth from the Valley of Shale to the mountain forests of Tyrsis. They rode west until at last they reached the Kennon Pass, a high mountain trail that led them far into the Dragon’s Teeth to emerge miles further north within the forests that bound the castle of Paranor.

It was at dawn of the third day that they came down from the Kennon into the valley beyond, a dawn gray and hard as iron, clouded over and cold with winter’s chill. They rode in a line, traversing the narrow pass through mountains bare and stark as they loomed against the morning sky, and it was as if all life had ceased to be. Wind swept the empty rock with fierce gusts, and they bent their heads against its force. Below, the forested valley that sheltered the castle of the Druids stretched dark and forbidding before them. A faint, swirling mist hid the distant pinnacle of the Keep from their eyes.

As they rode, Brin Ohmsford struggled with an unshakable sense of impending disaster. It was a premonition really, and it had been with her since they had left the Valley of Shale. It tracked her with insidious purpose, a shadow as murky and cold as the land she rode through, an elusive thing that lurked within the rocks and crags, flitting from one place of hiding to another, watching with sly and evil intent. Hunched down within her riding cloak, drawing what warmth she could from the bulky folds, she let her mount choose its path on the narrow trail and felt the weight of the presence as it followed after.

It had been the Wraith mostly, she thought, that fostered that premonition. More than the harshness of the day, the dark intent of the Druid she followed, or the newfound fear she felt for the power of her wishsong, it was the Wraith. The Druid had assured her that there were no others. Yet such a dark and evil thing, silent in its coming, swift and terrible in its attack, then gone as quickly as it had appeared, with nothing left but its ashes. It was as if it were a being come from death into life, then gone back again, faceless, formless, a thing without identity, yet above all, frightening.

There would be others. How many others she did not know nor care to know. Many, certainly-all searching for her. She sensed it instinctively. Mord Wraiths-wherever they might be, whatever their other dark purposes-all would be looking for her. One only, the Druid had said. Yet that one had found them; and if one had found them, others could. How was it that that one had found them? Allanon had brushed aside her question when she asked it. Chance, he had answered. Somehow it hid crossed their trail and followed after, choosing its moment to strike when it thought the Druid weakened. But Brin thought it equally possible that the thing had tracked the Druid since his flight from the Eastland. If that were so, it would have gone first to Shady Vale.

And to Jair!

Odd, but there had been a moment earlier, a brief, fleeting moment as she wound her way down through the grayness of the dawn, alone with her thoughts, wrapped in the solitude of wind and cold, when she had felt her brother’s touch. It was as if he had been looking at her, his vision somehow reaching past the distance that separated them to find her as she made her way out of the great cliffs of the Dragon’s Teeth. But then the touch had faded, and Jair was as distant once more as the home she had left him to keep watch over.

This morning she was worried for Jair’s safety. The Wraith might have gone first to Shady Vale and found Jair, despite what Allanon said. The Druid had dismissed the idea, but he was not to be trusted completely. Allanon was a keeper of secrets, and what he revealed was what he wished known-nothing more. It had always been that way with the Ohmsfords, ever since the Druid had first come to Shea.

She thought again of his meeting with the shade of Bremen in the Valley of Shale. Something had passed between them that the Druid had chosen to keep hidden-something terrible. Despite his assurances to the contrary, he had learned something that had disturbed him greatly, had even frightened him. Could it be that what he had learned involved Jair?

The thought haunted her. Were anything to happen to her brother and the Druid to learn of it, she felt he would keep it from her. Nothing would be allowed to interfere with the mission he had set for her. He was as dark and terrible in his determination as the enemy they sought to overcome-and in that he frightened her as much as they. She was still troubled by what he had done to Rone.

Rone Leah loved her; it was unspoken between them perhaps, but it was there. He had come with her because of that love, to make certain that she had someone with her whom she could always trust. He did not feel Allanon was that person. But the Druid had subverted Rone’s intentions and at the same time silenced his criticism. He had challenged Rone’s self-designated role as protector; when the challenge was accepted, he had turned the highlander into a lesser version of himself by the giving of magic to the Sword of Leah.

An old and battered relic, the Sword had been little more than a symbol Rone bore to remind himself of the legacy of courage and strength-of-heart attributed to the house of Leah. But the Druid had made it a weapon with which the highlander might seek to attain his own oft-imagined feats-at-arms. In so doing, Allanon had mandated that Rone’s role as protector be something far more awesome than either she or the highlander had envisioned. And what the Druid had made of Rone Leah might well destroy him.

“It was like nothing I could ever have imagined,” he had confided to her when they were alone that first night after leaving the Valley of Shale. He had been hesitant in his speech, yet excited. It had taken him that long just to bring himself to speak of it to her. “The power just seemed to explode within me. Brin, I don’t even know what made me do it; I just acted. I saw Allanon trapped within the fire and I just acted. When the Sword cut into the fire, I could feel its power. I was part of it. At that moment, I felt as if there were nothing I could not do-nothing!”

His face had flushed with the memory. “Brin, not even the Druid frightens me anymore!”

Brin’s eyes lifted to scan the dark spread of the forests below, still misted in the half-light of the harsh autumn day. Her premonition slipped through the rocks and across the twist of the pass, cat-quick and certain. It will show no face until it is upon us, she thought. And then we will be destroyed. Somehow I know it to be so. The voice whispers in my thoughts of Jair, of Rone, of Allanon, and of the Mord Wraiths most of all. It whispers in secrets kept from me, in the gray oppression of this day, and in the misty dark of what lies ahead.

We will be destroyed. All of us.

They were within the forests by midday. All afternoon they rode, winding their way through mist and gloom, threading needles of passage through massive trees and choking brush. This was an empty woods, devoid of life and color, hard as iron in autumn’s gray, with leaves gone dusty brown and curled against the cold like frightened things. Wolves had once prowled these woods, great gray monsters that protected against all who dared to trespass in the land of the Druids. But the wolves were gone, their time long past, and now there was only the stillness and the emptiness. All about, there was a sense of something dying.

Dusk had begun to fall when Allanon at last bade them halt, weary and aching from the long day’s ride. They tied their horses within a gathering of giant oaks, giving them only a small ration of water and feed so that they might not cramp. Then they went ahead on foot. The gloom about them deepened with night’s coming, and the stillness gave way to a low, distant rumble that seemed to hang in the air. Steady and sure, the Druid led them on, picking his way with the sense of one familiar with the region; there was no hesitation in his step as he found the path. As silent as the shadows about them, the three slipped through the trees and brush and melted into the night.

What is it that we go to do? Brin whispered within her mind. What dark purpose of the Druid’s do we serve this night?

Then the trees broke before them. Out of the gray dusk rose the cliffs of Paranor, steep and towering, and at their rim was the ancient castle of the Druids, called the Keep. It rose high within the darkness, a monstrous stone and iron giant rooted in the earth. From within the Keep and the mountain upon which it rested sounded the rumble they had heard earlier, and which had grown steadily louder as they approached, the deep thrum of machinery grinding in ceaseless cadence against the silence that lifted all about. Torches burned like devil’s eyes within narrow, iron-barred windows, crimson and lurid against the night sky, and smoke trailed into mist. Once Druids had walked the halls beyond, and it was a time of enlightenment and great promise for the races of Man. But that time was gone. Now only Gnomes and Mord Wraiths walked in Paranor.

“Hear me,” Allanon whispered suddenly, and they bent close to listen. “Hear what I tell you and do not question. The shade of Bremen has given warning. Paranor has fallen to the Mord Wraiths. They seek within its walls the hidden histories of the Druids so that their own power may be strengthened. Other times, the Keep has fallen to an enemy and it has always been regained. But this time that cannot be. This marks the end of all that has been. The age closes, and Paranor must pass from the land.”

Highlander and Valegirl stared at the Druid. “What are you saying, Allanon?” Brin demanded fiercely.

The Druid’s eyes gleamed in the dark. “That in my lifetime and yours-in the lifetime of your children and perhaps your children’s children-no man shall set foot within the walls of the Druid’s Keep after this night. We are to be the last. We shall go into the Keep through its lower passages that are yet unknown to the Wraiths and Gnomes who search within. We shall go to where the power of the Druids has for centuries been seated and with that power close away the Keep from mankind. We must pass quickly though, for all found within the Keep this night shall die-even we, if we prove too slow. Once the needed magic is brought forth, there will be little time left to escape its sweep.”

Brin shook her head slowly. “I don’t understand. Why must this be done? Why can no one again enter Paranor after tonight? What of the work that you do?”

The Druid’s hand touched her cheek softly. “It is finished, Brin Ohmsford.”

“But the Maelmord-the Ildatch...”

“Nothing we do here can help us in our quest.” Allanon’s voice was almost lost to her. “What we do here serves another purpose.”

“What if we’re seen?” Rone broke in suddenly.

“We shall fight our way free,” Allanon answered at once. “We must. Remember first to protect Brin. Do not stop, whatever happens. Once the magic has been called forth, do not look back and do not slow.” He bent forward, his lean face close to that of the highlander. “Remember, too, that you now possess the power of Druid magic in your sword. Nothing can stop you, Prince of Leah. Nothing.”

Rone Leah nodded solemnly, and this time did not question what he was told. Brin shook her head slowly, and the premonition danced before her eyes.

“Valegirl.” The Druid was speaking to her, and her eyes lifted to find his. “Stay close to the Prince of Leah and to me. Let us shield you from whatever danger we may encounter. Do nothing to risk your own life. You, most of all, must be kept safe, for you are the key to the destruction of the Ildatch. That quest lies ahead of you and it must be completed.”

Both hands came up to grip her shoulders. “Understand. I cannot leave you here safely or I would do so. The danger is greater than it will be if you go with us into the Keep. Death flies all through these woods on this night, and it must be kept from you.”

He paused, waiting for her response. Slowly she nodded. “I’m not afraid,” she lied.

Allanon stepped back. “Then let us begin. Silently, now. Speak no more until this is done.”

They disappeared into the night like shadows.