Sunlight spilled from out of the cloudless blue afternoon sky to etch sharply Allanon’s tall, shadowy form as it passed against the backdrop of the forest color. Warmth and sweet autumn smells lingered in the air, a teasing whisper to the Druid’s senses, and across the woodlands a soft and gentle breeze blew down through the trees to ruffle the long, black robes.. Within its banks of still summer-green grasses, the river of the Chard Rush glimmered azure and silver, its gleam reflected coldly in the tall man’s eyes.
He was conscious of nothing now but the sleek, reddish-skinned form that crept catlike down the far slope of the glen’s shallow bowl, yellow eyes narrowed, muzzle curled back in anticipation.
Please come back! Brin cried out the words in the silence of her mind, rendered voiceless by the horror of the familiar premonition that had returned suddenly to haunt her and dance in wild glee at the edges of her sight.
It was this that the premonition had warned against!
The Jachyra dropped down upon all fours, muscles rippling in corded knots beneath the taut skin as slaver began to form about its mouth. Spikes rose along the length of its spine and flexed with the movement of its body as it crept to the floor of the sunlit glen. Muzzle lifting toward the dark figure across from it, the monster cried out a second time-that same, hideous howl that rang like maddened laughter.
Allanon drew to a halt a dozen yards from where it crouched. Motionless, he faced the creature. On the hard, dark face there appeared a look of such frightening determination that it seemed to the Valegirl and the highlander that no living thing, however evil, could stand against it. Yet the Jachyra’s frenzied grin merely broadened; more hooked teeth slipped into view from out of its drawn muzzle. There was madness in the yellow eyes.
For a long, terrible instant Druid and monster faced each other in the deep silence of the autumn afternoon and the whole of the world about them ceased to be. Again the Jachyra’s laughter sounded. It stepped sideways-an odd, swinging movement. Then, with terrifying suddenness, it lunged for Allanon. Nothing had ever moved so fast. Little more than a blur of reddish fury, it sprang clear of the earth and tore into the Druid.
Somehow it missed. Allanon was faster than his attacker, slipping aside as swiftly as a shadow gone with night. The Jachyra flew past the Druid, tearing into the earth beyond as it landed. Whirling with scarcely a moment’s pause, it sprang at its prey a second time. But already the Druid’s hands were extended, blue fire bursting forth. The fire ripped into the Jachyra, throwing it backward in midair. It struck the ground in a tangled heap and still the fire tore at it, burning and searing and thrusting the beast back until it came to a jarring halt against a great oak.
Astonishingly, the Jachyra was back on its feet almost at once.
“Shades!” Rone Leah whispered.
It came at Allanon again, dodging and twisting past the Druid fire that flew from the ocher’s fingers. Raging, it flung itself at the tall man with the deadly quickness of a snake. The blue fire hammered into it, flinging it away, but it caught the Druid with the claws of one hand, tearing into black robes and flesh. Allanon staggered back, shrugging at the impact of the blow, the fire disappearing into smoke. In the tall grass a dozen feet away, the Jachyra came back to its feet once more.
Cautiously, the two antagonists circled each other. The Druid’s arms and hands extended guardedly before him, and the dark face was a mask of fury. But in the grasses through which he stepped, droplets of his blood streaked the deep green crimson.
The Jachyra’s snout split wide once more, an evil, maddened grin. Trailers of smoke curled from the reddish skin where the fire had seared it, yet the monster seemed unharmed. Iron muscles rippled as it moved, a sleek and confident dance of death that led its intended victim on.
Again it attacked, a swift, fluid lunge that carried it into the Druid before the fire could be brought to bear. Allanon’s hands fastened on the wrists of the beast, holding it upright so it could not reach his body. The crooked teeth snapped viciously, trying to fasten on the tall man’s neck. Locked in this position, the two surged back and forth across the glen, twisting and squirming in an effort to gain the advantage.
Then, with a tremendous heave, the Druid flung the Jachyra over backward, lifting it off its feet and throwing it to the earth. Instantly the blue fire burst from his fingers and engulfed the monster. The Jachyra’s cry was high and terrible, a frenzied shriek that froze the whole of the woods about it. Pain was in that cry, yet a pain that sounded of something inexplicably gleeful. The Jachyra leaped from the column of fire, twisting to free itself, its powerful red form steaming and alive with small bits of blue flame. It tumbled over and over through the grasses, a maddened and raging thing, consumed by an ever darker fire that burned within. It came to its feet yet again, hooked teeth gleaming as its muzzle drew back, yellowed eyes bright and ugly.
It likes the pain, Brin realized in horror. It feeds on it.
Behind her, the horses snorted and backed away from the scent of the Jachyra, pulling against the reins secured in Rone Leah’s hands. The highlander glanced back worriedly, calling to the animals, trying unsuccessfully to calm them.
Once again, the Jachyra came at Allanon, darting and lunging through the blaze of Druid fire that burned into it. It almost reached the black-robed figure, claws ripping, and again Allanon stepped aside just in time, the blue fire thrusting the creature away in a burst of power.
Brin watched it all, sickened by the struggle but unable to look away. A single thought repeated itself in her mind, over and over. The Jachyra was too much. The Druid had fought so many terrible battles and survived; he had faced awesome creatures of dark magic. But the Jachyra was somehow different. It was a thing ignorant and incautious of life and death, whose existence defied all nature’s laws-a creature of madness, frenzy, and purposeless destruction.
An ear-shattering shriek broke from the Jachyra’s throat as the monster flung itself at Allanon again. The horses reared in fright, the reins tearing free of Rone’s hands. Desperately, the highlander sought to recapture them. But the instant they pulled free, the horses bolted wildly back toward the falls. In a matter of seconds, they had disappeared into the trees beyond.
Rone and Brin turned back to the struggle below. Allanon had thrown up a wall of fire between himself and his attacker, the flames darting out at the Jachyra like knives as the creature sought vainly to break past. Purposefully the Druid maintained the wall, arms extended in rigid concentration. Then suddenly the arms dropped downward in a sweeping motion, bringing with them the wall of fire. Like a net it dropped across the Jachyra and the beast was consumed. It disappeared entirely for an instant, lost in a raging ball of flame. Twisting and turning, it sought to escape, but the fire clung to it tenaciously, held fast by the Druid’s magic. Try as it might, the Jachyra could not shake free.
Brin’s hand fastened on Rone. Perhaps...
But then the Jachyra bolted sharply away from Allanon and the open grasses of the glen, into the forest trees. Still the flames clung to it, but already the fire was beginning to dissipate. The distance between Druid and beast was too great, and Allanon could not maintain his hold. Howling, the monster flung itself into a stand of pine, shattering limbs and trunks, throwing fire everywhere. Wood and pine needles splintered and flamed, and smoke rolled out of the shadows.
At the center of the glen, Allanon’s hands dropped away wearily. At its edge, Brin and Rone waited in hushed silence, staring at the smoky gloom into which the beast had disappeared. The forest was still once more.
“It’s gone,” Rone whispered finally.
Brin did not reply. Voiceless, she waited.
A moment later, something moved within the burned and darkened stretch of pine. Brin felt the cold that had settled deep within her flare sharply. The Jachyra stepped out from the trees. It glided to the edge of the glen, muzzle split wide in that hideous grin, yellow eyes gleaming.
It was unharmed.
“What manner of devil is this?” Rone Leah whispered.
The Jachyra crept back again toward Allanon, its breath harsh and eager. A low, anxious whine broke from its throat, and its snout lifted as if to catch the Druid’s scent. On the long grass before it, a trace of the big man’s blood dappled the green a bright scarlet. The Jachyra stopped. Slowly, deliberately, it bent to the blood and began to lick it from the earth. The whine turned suddenly deep with pleasure.
Then it attacked. In a single, fluid motion, it gathered its hindlegs beneath it and flung itself at Allanon. The Druid’s hands came up, fingers extending-too slow. The creature was upon him before he could call forth the fire. They tumbled down into the long grass, rolling and spinning, locked together. So quick had the attack come that the monster was atop Allanon before Brin’s sharp cry of warning could reach his ears. Blue fire flared at the tips of the Druid’s fingers, searing the wrists and forearms of his attacker as they grappled, but the fire had no effect. The Jachyra’s claws ripped into Allanon, tearing through cloth and flesh, ripping downward into bone. The Druid’s head jerked back, pain flooding across the dark face-a pain that went beyond physical hurt. Desperately, the Druid sought to dislodge the beast, but the Jachyra had gotten too close and there was no room for leverage. Claws and teeth tore at Allanon, the corded body of the monstrous attacker holding its victim fast to the earth.
“No!” Rone Leah screamed suddenly.
Tearing free of Brin as she sought to restrain him, the Prince of Leah charged down into the glen, the ebony blade of his great broadsword grasped tightly in both hands. “Leah! Leah!” he cried in fury. The promise he had give the Druid was forgotten. He could not stand back and watch Allanon die. He had saved him once; he could do so again.
“Rone, come back!” Brin screamed after him futilely.
Rone Leah reached the struggling figures an instant later. The dark blade of the Sword of Leah lifted and swept downward in a glittering arc, cutting deep into the neck and shoulders of the Jachyra, driven by the force of magic, tearing through muscle and bone. The Jachyra reared back, a frightful howl breaking from its throat, its reddish body snapping upright as if it had been broken from within.
“Die, you monster!” Rone cried in rage as he caught sight of the torn and bloodied figure of Allanon beneath.
But the Jachyra did not die. One corded arm swung about sharply and caught the highlander across the face with stunning force. He flew backward, hands releasing their grip on the Sword of Leah. At once the Jachyra was after him, howling all the while in maddened delight, almost as if the greater pain pleased it in some foul, incomprehensible way. It caught Rone before he fell, seized him in its claws and flung him the length of the glen to lie in a crumpled heap.
Then it straightened. The dark blade of the Sword of Leah was still buried in its body. Reaching back, the Jachyra wrenched the sword free as if the blow had meant nothing to it. It hesitated an instant, the blade held before its yellow eyes. Then it hurled the Sword of Leah from it, into the air high above the waters of the Chard Rush, to fall into their grasp and be carried from sight like a piece of deadwood, bobbing and spinning in the swift current.
The Jachyra spun back around toward the fallen figure of Allanon. Astonishingly, the Druid was on his feet again, black robes shredded and stained dark with his blood. Seeing him risen, the Jachyra seemed to go completely berserk. Howling in fury, it sprang.
But this time the Druid did not try to stop it. Catching the Jachyra in midleap, his great hands closed about its neck like a vise. Heedless of the claws that tore at his body, he forced the monster backward to the ground, the hands squeezing. Shrieks rose out of the Jachyra’s damaged throat and the reddish body twisted like a snake that has been pierced. Still the Druid’s hands crushed inward. The muzzle split wide, teeth snapping and ripping at the air.
Then abruptly Allanon’s hands released and jammed downward into the open maw. They thrust deep into the monster’s throat. From the clasped fingers blue fire ripped downward. Convulsions shook the Jachyra, and its limbs flung wide. The Druid fire burned through its powerful body, down into the very core of its being. It struggled to break free for only an instant. Then the fire broke out of it from everywhere, and it exploded in a blinding flash of blue light.
Brin turned away, shielding her eyes against the glare. When she looked back, Allanon knelt alone atop a pile of charred ash.
Brin went first to the unconscious Rone, who lay sprawled in a twisted heap at the back edge of the glen, his breathing shallow and slow. Gently she straightened him, feeling carefully about his limbs and body for signs of breakage. She found none and, after wiping clean the cuts on his face, she hurried down to Allanon.
The Druid still knelt within the ashes that had been the Jachyra, his arms folded tight against his body, his head lowered against his chest. His long black robes were shredded and soaked with his blood.
Slowly Brin knelt beside him, a stricken look on her face as she saw what had been done to him. The Druid lifted his head wearily, hard eyes locking on her own.
“I am dying, Brin Ohmsford,” he said quietly. She tried to shake her head, but his hand lifted to stop her. “Hear me, Valegirl. It was foretold that this should be. In the Valley of Shale, the shade of Bremen, my father, said to me that it should be. He said that I must pass from the land and that I would not come again. He said that it would happen before our quest was done.”
He winced with sudden pain, his face tightening in response. “I thought that perhaps I could make it otherwise. But the Wraiths...the Wraiths found a way to set free the Jachyra, knowing perhaps...at least hoping that I would be the one it would encounter. It is a thing of insanity. It feeds on its own pain and on the pain of others. In its madness, it wounds not just the body, but the spirit as well. There is no defense. It would have torn itself apart...just to see me destroyed. It is a poison...”
He choked on the words. Brin bent close, swallowing back the hurt and fear. “We must dress the wounds, Allanon. We must...”
“No, Brin, it is finished,” he cut her short. “There is no help for me. It must be for me as it was foretold.” He glanced across the glen slowly. “But you must help the Prince of Leah. The poison will be in him as well. He is your protector now...as he said he would be.” His eyes shifted back to her own. “Know that his sword is not lost. The magic will not let it be lost. It must...find its way to mortal hands...the river will carry it to those hands...”
Again he choked on the words, this time doubling over sharply against the pain of his wounds. Brin reached out and caught him, held him upright, close against her.
“Don’t talk anymore,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes.
Slowly he pulled away from her, straightening. Blood coated her hands and arms where she had held him.
A faint, ironical smile flickered on his lips. “The Wraiths think that I am the one they need fear-that I am the one who can destroy them.” He shook his head slowly. “They are wrong. You are the power, Brin. You are the one that...nothing can stand against.”
One hand fastened on her arm in a grip of iron. “Hear me well. Your father mistrusts the Elven magic; he fears what it can do. I tell you now that he has reason to mistrust it, Valegirl. The magic can be a thing of light or a thing of dark for the one who possesses it. It seems a toy, perhaps, but it has never been that. Be wary of its power. It is power like nothing I have ever seen. Keep it your own. Use it well, and it will see you safely through to the end of your quest. Use it well, and it will see the Ildatch destroyed!”
“Allanon, I cannot go on without you!” she cried softly, shaking her head in despair.
“You can and you must. As with your father...there is no one else.” His dark face lowered.
She nodded dumbly, barely hearing him, lost in the jumble of emotions that raged within her as she fought back against the inevitability of what was happening.
“The age passes,” Allanon whispered and the black eyes glistened. “So must the Druids pass with it.” His hand lifted to fall gently on hers. “But the trust I carry for them must not pass, Valegirl. It must remain with those who live. That trust I give now to you. Bend close.”
Brin Ohmsford leaned forward until her face was directly before his. Slowly, painfully, the Druid slipped one hand within the shredded robes to his chest, then brought it forth again, the fingers dipped into his own blood. Gently he touched her forehead. Holding the fingers to her flesh, warm with his lifeblood, he spoke softly in a language she had never heard. Something of his touch and of the words seemed to seep into her, filling her with a rush of exhilaration that swept across her vision in a surge of blinding color and then was gone.
[[pg 271 picture]]
“What...have you done to me?” she asked him haltingly.
But the Druid did not answer. “Help me to my feet,” he commanded her.
She stared at him. “You cannot walk, Allanon! You are too badly hurt!”
A strange, unfamiliar gentleness filled the dark eyes. “Help me to my feet, Brin. I will not have to walk far.”
Reluctantly she wrapped her arms about him and eased him from the ground. Blood soaked the grasses upon which he had knelt and the mass of ashes that had been the Jachyra.
“Oh, Allanon!” Brin was crying freely now.
“Walk me to the river’s edge,” he whispered.
Slowly, unsteadily, they stumbled across the empty glen to where the Chard Rush churned swiftly eastward within its grass-covered banks. The sun still shone a brilliant gold, warm and friendly as it brightened the autumn day. It was a day of life, not of death, and Brin cried within that it could not become so for Allanon.
They reached the bank of the river. Gently the Valegirl let the Druid settle once more into a kneeling position, his dark head lowered against the sunlight.
“When your quest is done, Brin,” he said to her, “you will find me here.” His face lifted to hers. “Now stand away.”
Stricken, she stepped slowly back from him. Tears ran down her face, and her hands made pleading motions to the slouched form.
Allanon stared back at her for a long moment, then turned away. One blood-streaked arm lifted toward the waters of the Chard Rush, stretching out above them. The river went still instantly, its surface as calm and placid as that of a sheltered pond. A strange, hollow silence descended over everything.
A moment later the center of the still water began to churn violently and from the depths of the river rose the cries that had come from the waters of the Hadeshorn-high and piercing. They sounded for but an instant, and then all was still once more.
On the river’s edge, Allanon’s hand dropped to his side and his head bowed.
Then the spectral figure of Bremen rose from the Chard Rush. Gray and nearly transparent against the afternoon light, the shade rose to stand upon the river’s waters, ragged and bent with age.
“Father,” Brin heard Allanon call softly.
The shade came forward, gliding motionlessly on the still surface of the river. It came to where the Druid knelt. There it bent slowly downward and gathered the stricken form in its arms. Without turning, it moved back across the water, Allanon cradled close. It stopped again at the center of the Chard Rush, and beneath it the waters boiled fiercely, hissing and steaming. Then it sank slowly back into the river, and the last of the Druids was carried from sight. The Chard Rush was still an instant longer, and then the magic was ended and it began to churn eastward once again.
“Allanon!” Brin Ohmsford cried.
Alone on the riverbank she stared out across the swift-flowing waters and waited for the reply that would never come.
After capturing Jair at the fall of the Dwarf fortress of Capaal, the Mwellret Stythys marched him north through the wilderness of the Anar. Following the twists and turns of the Silver River as it wove threadlike through trees and brush, over cliffs, and across ravines, they passed deep into the forestland and the darkness that lay close about. All the while they traveled, the Valeman was kept gagged and leashed-like an animal. Only at mealtimes was he freed of his bonds so that he might eat, and the cold reptilian eyes of the Mwellret were always upon him. Gray, rain-filled hours slipped away with agonizing slowness as the march wore on, and all that had been of the Valeman’s life, his friends and companions, and his hopes and promises seemed to slip away with them. The woods were dank and fetid, infused by the poisoned waters of the Silver River with rot and choked by dying brush and trees clustered so thickly that the whole of the sky was screened away by their tangle. Only the river gave them any sense of direction as it flowed sluggishly past, blackened and fouled.
Others passed north in those days as well, bound for the deep Anar. On the wide road that ran parallel to the Silver River, which the Mwellret cautiously avoided, caravans of Gnome soldiers and their prisoners trekked in steady procession, mired in mud and laden with the pillage of an invading army. The prisoners were bound and chained-men who had fought as defenders at Capaal. They stumbled past in long lines, herded like cattle, Dwarves, Elves, and Bordermen, haggard, beaten, and stripped of hope. Jair looked down on them through the trees above the roadway over which they traveled and there were tears in his eyes.
Armies of Gnomes from Graymark also traveled the road, southbound in great, unruly masses as they hastened to join those tribes already advancing into the lands of the Dwarf people. Thousands came, grim and frightening, their hard yellow faces twisted with jeers as they called to the hapless prisoners that marched past them. Mord Wraiths came, too, though no more than a handful, dark and shadowed things that walked alone and were avoided by all.
The weather turned worse as the journey wore on. Skies turned black with thunderclouds and the rain began to fall in steady sheets. Lightning flashed in brilliant streaks and booming peals of thunder rolled the length of the sodden land. Autumn’s trees drooped and matted with the wet, the colored leaves sinking and falling into the mire, and the ground turned muddied and uncertain. A gray and dismal cast settled down across the forestland, and it seemed as if the skies pressed against the earth to choke its life away.
Jair Ohmsford felt as if that might be so as he trudged helplessly through the wilderness brush, pulled on by the leather bindings gripped in the hands of the dark-robed figure before him. Cold and wet sank deep within him. As the hours passed, exhaustion began to take its toll. A fever settled in, and, as it did so, his mind began to wander. Flashes of what had brought him to this sorry state mingled with childhood memories in garbled bits of still-life that hovered briefly within his stricken mind and disappeared. Sometimes he was not entirely lucid, and strange and frightening visions would wrack him, stealing through his thoughts like thieves. Even when he was free momentarily of the effects of the fever, a dark despair colored his thoughts. There was no hope for him now, it whispered. Capaal, the defenders that had held her, and all of his friends and companions were gone. Images of them. in the moment of their fall flashed in his mind with the blinding clarity of the lightning that crackled overhead through the canopy of the trees. Garet Jax, pulled deep into the gray waters of the Cillidellan by the Kraken; Foraker and Helt, buried beneath the wall of stone rubble brought down by the dark magic of the walkers; Slanter, running heedlessly down the underground corridors of the fortress before him, never looking back, never seeing. Even Brin, Allanon, and Rone appeared at times, lost somewhere deep within the Anar.
Sometimes thoughts of the King of the Silver River would come to him, clear and strangely poignant, filled with the wonder and the mystery of the old man. Remember, they whispered in soft, anxious tones. Do not forget what you must do. But he had forgotten, it seemed. Tucked within his tunic, hidden from the prying eyes of the Mwellret, were the gifts of magic the old man had bestowed on him-the vision crystal and the leather bag with the Silver Dust. He had them still and he meant to keep them. But somehow their purpose was strangely unclear, lost in the swell of the fever, hidden in the wanderings of his mind.
Finally, when they stopped for the night; the Mwellret saw that he was taken with fever and gave him a medicine to drink, mixing the contents of a pouch at his waist with a cup of dark, bitter ale. The Valeman tried to refuse the drink, wracked with the fever and his own sense of uncertainty, but the Mwellret forced it down him. Shortly after, he fell asleep and slept that night untroubled. At dawn he was given more of the bitter potion; by dusk of the second night, the fever had begun to subside.
They slept that night within a cave on a high ridgeline overlooking the dark curve of the river, dryer and warmer than they had been on previous nights, free of the extreme discomfort that had plagued them in the open forest. It was on this night that Jair again came to speak with his captor. They had finished their meal of ground roots and dried beef and drunk a small measure of the bitter ale; now they sat facing each other in the dark, huddled down within their cloaks against the night’s chill. Without, the rain fell in a slow, steady drizzle, spattering noisily against trees, stones, and muddied earth. The Mwellret had not replaced the gag in the Valeman’s mouth as he had done the past two nights, but had left it loose about his neck. He sat watching Jair, his cold eyes glittering, his reptilian face a vague shadow within the darkness of his cowl. He made no move, nor did he speak. He simply sat and watched as the Valeman crouched across from him. The minutes slipped by, and at last Jair grew determined to engage the creature in conversation.
“Where are you taking me?” he ventured cautiously.
Slitted eyes narrowed further, and it was then the Valeman realized that the Mwellret had been waiting for him to speak. “We go into the High Benss.”
Jair shook his head, not understanding. “The High Bens?”
“Mountainss below the Ravensshorn, Elfling,” the other hissed. “Sstay for a time within thosse mountainss. Put you in the Gnome prissonss at Dun Fee Aran!”
Jair’s throat tightened. “Prison? You plan to lock me in a prison?”
“Guesstss of mine sstay there,” the other rasped, laughing softly.
The Valeman stiffened at the sound of the laughter and fought back against the fear that washed through him. “Why are you doing this to me?” he demanded angrily. “What do you want from me?”
“Hss!” A hooked finger pointed. “Doess the Elfling truly not know? Doess he not ssee?” The cloaked form hunched closer. “Then lissten, little peopless. Hear! Ourss wass the gifted peopless, lordss over all the mountainss’ life. Comess to uss the Dark Lord many yearss gone passt now, and a bargain wars sstruck. Little Gnome peopless ssent to sserve the Dark Lord if he leavess our peopless be, lordss sstill within the mountainss. Doess thiss, the Dark Lord, and in hiss time passsess from the earth. But we endure. We live!”
The crooked finger twisted slowly. “Then comess the walkerss, climbed from the dark pit of the Maelmord, climbed into our mountainss. Sserve the magic of the Dark Lord, they ssay. Give we up our homess, they ssay. Give we up the little peopless that sserve uss. Bargainss mean nothing now. We refusse the walkerss, the Wraithss. We are sstrong alsso. But ssomething done to uss. We ssicken and die. No young are born. Our peopless fail. Yearss passs, and we weaken to a handful. Sstill the walkerss ssay we musst go from the mountainss. At lasst we are too few, and the walkerss drive uss forth!”
He paused then, and the green slitted eyes burned deep into the Valeman’s, filled with rage and bitterness. “Left me for dead, did the walkerss, the Wraithss. Black thingss of evil. But I live!”
Jair stared at the monster. Stythys was admitting to him that the Mwellrets in the time of Shea Ohmsford had sold to the Warlock Lord the lives of the mountain Gnomes so that they might be used to fight against the Southland in the aborted Third War of the Races. The Mwellrets had done this in order to preserve their lordship over their mountain kingdom in the Ravenshorn. It was as Foraker had told him and as the Dwarf people had suspected. But then the Mord Wraiths had come, successors to the power of the dark magic of the Warlock Lord. The Eastland was to be theirs now, and the Ravenshorn would no longer belong to the Mwellrets. When the lizard things had resisted, the Wraiths had sickened and destroyed them. So Stythys had indeed been driven forth from his homeland to be found by the Dwarves and brought into Capaal...
“But what has all this to do with me?” he demanded, a sinking suspicion settling through him.
“Magicss!” the Mwellret hissed instantly. “Magicss, little friend! I wissh what you posssess. Ssongss you ssing musst be mine! You have the magicss; you musst give them to me!’
“But I can’t!” Jair exclaimed in frustration.
A grimace twisted the other’s scaled face. “Can’t, little friend? Powerss of magicss musst again come to my peopless-not to the Wraithss. Your magicss sshall be given, Elfling. At the prissonss you sshall give them. You will ssee.”
Jair looked away. It was the same with Stythys as it had been with the Gnome Sedt Spilk-both had wanted mastery over something that Jair could not give them. The magic of the wishsong was his, and only he could use it. It would be as useless to the Mwellret as it had been to the Sedt.
And then a chilling thought struck him. Suppose that Stythys knew that? Suppose that the Mwellret knew he could not have the magic, but that he must make use of it through Jair? The Valeman remembered what had been done to him in that cell in Capaal-how the Mwellret had made him reveal the magic...
He caught his breath. Oh, shades! Suppose Stythys knew-or suppose that he even suspected-that there were other magics? Suppose he sensed the presence of the vision crystal and the Silver Dust?
“You can’t have them,” he whispered, almost before he realized what he was saying. There was a hint of desperation in his voice.
The Mwellret’s reply was a soft hiss. “Prissonss will change your mind, little peopless. You will ssee.”
Jair Ohmsford lay awake for a long time after that, gagged and hobbled once more, lost in the darkness of his thoughts as he listened to the sounds of the rainfall and the breathing of the sleeping Mwellret. Shadows lay all about the entrance to the little cave; without, the wind blew the stormclouds above the sodden forest. What was he to do? Behind him lay his quest and his shattered plans for saving Brin. Before him lay the Gnome prisons of Dun Fee Aran. Once locked within their walls, he might never come away again, for it was certain that the Mwellret meant to keep him there until he had revealed what he knew of the secrets of the Elven magic. But he would never give up those secrets. They were his to use in service to the King of the Silver River in exchange for the life of his sister. He would never give them up. Yet he sensed that, despite his resolve and whatever strength he could muster to resist his captor, sooner or later Stythys would find a way to wrest those secrets from him.
Thunder rumbled in the distance somewhere, rolling across the forestland, deep and ominous. More ominous still was the despair of the Valeman. It was a long time before exhaustion overcame him and he at last fell asleep.
Jair and the Mwellret resumed their march north with the coming of dawn on the third day, plodding through rain, mist, and sodden woods, and at midday they passed into the High Bens. The mountains were dark and rugged, a cluster of broken peaks and crags that straddled the Silver River where it washed down out of the high forestland below the Ravenshorn. The two climbed into their midst, swallowed by mist that clung to the rocks until at last, as the day waned and the night began to fall, they stood upon a bluff overlooking the fortress of Dun Fee Aran.
Dun Fee Aran was a sprawling, castlelike complex of walls, towers, watches, and battlements. The whole of the fortress had a gray and dreary cast to it as it materialized out of the rain before them, one that would have been there, Jair sensed, even in the best of weather. Wordlessly, they trudged from the trees, the tall, cloaked Mwellret leading the hobbled Valeman, and passed through the brush and scrub of the bluff face into the sodden camp. Gnome Hunters and retainers of all ranks and standings plodded past them across the muddied grounds, cloaked and hooded against the weather and caught up in their own concerns. No one questioned them. No one gave them a second look. They passed over stone parapets and walkways, over walls and causeways, down stairs, and through halls. The night began to deepen and the light to fail. Jair felt as if the world were closing in about him, shutting him away. He could smell the stench of the place, the closed and fetid reek of cells and human bodies. Lives were expended here without much thought, he sensed with a chill. Lives were locked away within these walls and forgotten.
A huge, blocklike structure loomed before them, windows no more than tiny slits through the stones, doors ironbound and massive. They entered this building and silence closed about them.
“Prissonss, Elfling,” Jair heard the Mwellret whisper back at him.
They traversed a maze of dark and shadowed corridors, hallways filled with doors whose bolts and hinges showed rust and cobwebs undisturbed by the passage of time. Jair felt cold and empty as he watched row after row of these doors pass away. Their boots echoed dully in the silence, and only the distant sound of iron clanging and stone being chiseled came otherwise to his ears. Jair’s eyes scanned dismally the walls that rose about him. How will I ever get out of here? he wondered in the silence of his mind. How will I ever find my way?
Then a torch flared before them in the corridor, and a small cloaked form came into view. It was a Gnome, aged and ruined, yellow face ravaged by some nameless disease so loathsome that Jair pulled back against the leather ties that bound him. Stythys advanced to where the Gnome stood waiting, bent over the ugly little man, and made a few cryptic signs with his fingers. The Gnome replied in kind; with a brief motion of one crooked hand, he bade them follow.
They went deeper into the prisons, the light from the world without all but lost in the twist of stone and mortar. Only the torch showed them the Way, burning and smoking through the blackness.
They stopped at last before an ironbound door similar to the hundreds they had passed before it. Hands twisting roughly about the metal latch, the Gnome wrenched its bolt free. With a grating screech, he brought the heavy portal open. Stythys looked back at Jair, then pulled at the leash and brought him forward into the room beyond. It was a small, cramped cell, empty save for a pile of straw bundled in one corner and a wooden bucket next to the door. A single tiny slit cut into the far wall let though a sliver of gray light from without.
The Mwellret turned, cut free the bonds that tied fair’s hands and slipped loose the gag that bound his mouth. Roughly, he shoved the Valeman past him onto the bed of straw.
“Thiss iss yourss, Elfling,” he hissed. “Home for little peopless until you tell me of the magicss.” The crooked finger pointed back to the hunched form of the Gnome behind him. “Your jailer, Elfling. He iss mine; one who sstill obeyss. Mute he iss-doess not sspeak or hear. Ssongss of magicss usseless on him. Feedss and tendss you, he doess.” He paused. “Hurtss you, too, if you dissobeyss.”
The Gnome’s ravaged face was turned toward the Valeman as Stythys spoke, but revealed nothing of what the mind behind it thought. Jair glanced about bleakly.
“Tellss me what I musst know, Elfling,” the Mwellret whispered suddenly. “Tellss me or never leavess thiss plasse!”
The cold voice hung with a hiss in the silence of the little room as the yellow eyes bore deep into the Valeman’s. Then Stythys wheeled away and strode back through the cellroom door. The Gnome jailer turned as well, crooked hands gripping the ironbound door by its latch bolt and pulling it firmly shut.
Huddled alone in the dark, Jair listened until the sound of their footfalls had disappeared.
The minutes slipped away into hours as he sat motionless within the cell, listening to the silence and thinking of how hopeless his position had become. Smells assailed his nostrils as he sat there, rank and harsh, mingling with the sense of despair that coursed relentlessly through him. He was scared now, so scared that he could barely bring himself to think. The thought had never crossed his mind before in all the time that had passed since he had abandoned his home in Shady Vale, fleeing from the Gnomes that hunted for him, but now for the first time it did.
You are going to fail, it whispered.
He would have cried then if he could have made himself do so, but somehow the tears would not come. Perhaps he was too frightened even for that. Think about how you will escape this place, he ordered himself. There is always a way out of everything.
He took a deep breath to steady himself. What would Garet Jax do in this situation? Or even Slanter? Slanter always had a way out; Slanter was a survivor. Even Rone Leah would have been able to come up with something.
His thoughts drifted for a time, wandering through memories of what had been, sidestepping effortlessly into dreams of what might somehow yet be. All of it was fantasy, false rendering of truths twisted in the madness of his own despair to become what he would have them be.
Then at last he made himself rise and walk about his tiny prison, exploring what he could already see was there, touching the damp, cold stone, and peering at the shaft of gray that slipped through the airhole from the skies without. He journeyed all about the cell, studying to no particular purpose, waiting for his emotions to still themselves and his thoughts to settle.
Suddenly he decided to use the vision crystal, If he were to have any sense of what time remained to him, he must discover what had become of Brin.
Hurriedly, he brought the crystal and its silver chain out from their place of concealment within his tunic. He stared down at the crystal, cupped gently within his hands. He could hear the old King’s voice whispering to him, cautioning him that this would be the means by which he could follow Brin’s progress. All he need do was sing to it...
Softly, he sang. At first, his voice would not come, choked with emotions that swam restlessly through him still. Yet he hardened himself against his own sense of uncertainty, and the sound of the wishsong filled the tiny room. Almost at once, the vision crystal brightened, sharp light flaring outward into the gloom and chasing the shadows before it.
He saw at once that it came from a small fire, and Brin’s face was before him, obviously studying the flames of a campfire. Her lovely face was cupped in her hands. Then she looked up and seemed to be searching. There were signs of strain and worry, and she looked almost haggard. Then she looked down again and sighed. She shuddered slightly, as if repressing a sob. All of her that Jair could see seemed to be given over to despair. Whatever had happened to her had obviously been unpleasant...
Jair’s voice broke as worry for his sister flooded through him, and the image of his sister’s frowning face wavered and vanished. The Valeman stared down in stunned silence at the crystal cupped in his hands.
Where, he wondered, was Allanon? There had been no sign of him in the crystal.
Leaves in the wind, the voice of the King of the Silver River whispered in his mind. She will be lost.
Then he closed his hands tightly about the vision crystal and stared sightlessly into the darkness.
Night had settled down across the forests of the Anar when Brin Ohmsford saw the lights. They winked at her like fireflies through the screen of the trees and shadows that stretched away into the dark, small, elusive, and distant.
She slowed, her arms wrapping quickly about Rone to keep him from falling as he stumbled to a halt beside her. An aching weariness wracked her body, but she forced herself to hold the highlander upright as he fell against her, his head drooping to her shoulder, his face hot and flushed with the fever.
“...can’t find where...lost, can’t find...” he muttered incoherently and the fingers of his hand gripped her arm until it hurt.
She whispered to him, letting him hear her voice and know she was still there. Slowly the fingers relaxed their grip, and the fevered voice went silent.
Brin stared ahead at the lights. They danced through forest boughs still thick with autumn leaves, bits and pieces of brightness. Fire! She whispered the word urgently, and it pushed back against the despair and the hopelessness that had closed in about her in steadily deepening layers since the march east from the Chard Rush had begun. How long ago it all seemed now-Allanon gone, Rone so badly wounded, and she alone. She closed her eyes against the memory. She had walked all that afternoon and into the night, following the run of the Chard Rush eastward, hoping, praying that it would lead her to some other human being who could help her. She didn’t know how long or how far she had walked; she had lost track of time and distance. She only knew that somehow she had managed to keep going.
She straightened, pulling Rone upright. Ahead, the lights flickered their greeting. Please! she cried silently. Please, let it be the help I need!
She trudged ahead, Rone’s arm looped about her shoulders, his body sagging against hers as he stumbled beside her. Tree limbs and scrub brushed at her face and body, and she bent her head against them. Putting one foot before the other with wooden doggedness, she went forward. Her strength was almost gone. If there was no help to be had here...
Then abruptly the screen of trees and shadows broke apart before her, and the source of the lights stood revealed. A building loomed ahead, shadowed and dark, save for slivers of yellow light that escaped from two places in its squarish bulk. Voices sounded from somewhere within, faint and indistinct.
Holding Rone close, she pushed on. As she drew nearer, the building began to come into focus. A low, squat structure with a peaked roof, it was constructed of timbers and sideboards on a stone foundation. A covered porch fronted a single storey with a garret, and a stable sat back away from the rear of the building. Two horses and a mule stood tied to a hitching post, heads lowered to crop the drying grass. Along the front of the building, a series of windows stood barred and shuttered against the night. It was through the gaps in the shutters that light thrown by oil lamps had escaped and been seen by the Valegirl.
“A little farther, Rone,” she whispered, knowing that he didn’t understand, but would respond to the sound of her voice.
When she was a dozen feet from the porch, she saw the sign that hung from the eaves of its sloping roof: ROOKER LINE TRADING CENTER.
The sign swayed gently in the night wind, weathered and split, the paint so badly faded into the wood that the letters were barely legible. Brin glanced up at it briefly and looked away. All that mattered was that there were people inside.
They climbed onto the porch, stumbling and tripping on the weathered boards, to sag against the door jamb. Brin groped for the handle, and the voices within suddenly went still. Then the Valegirl’s hand closed about the metal latch, and the heavy door swung open.
A dozen rough faces turned to stare at her, a mix of surprise and wariness in their eyes. Trappers, Brin saw through a haze of smoke and exhaustion-bearded and unkempt, their clothes of worn leather and animal skins. Hard-looking, they clustered in groups about a serving bar formed of wood planks laid crosswise on upended ale kegs. Animal pelts and provisions lay stacked behind the counter, and a series of small tables with stools sat before it. Oil lamps hung from low-beamed ceiling rafters and cast their harsh light against the night shadows.
With her arms wrapped about Rone, Brin stood silently in the open doorway and waited.
“They’s ghosts!” someone muttered suddenly from along the serving counter; and there was a shuffling of feet.
A tall, thin man in shirt-sleeves and apron came out from behind the counter, head shaking slowly. “If they was dead things, they’d have no need to open the door now, would they? They’d just walk right on through!”
He crossed to the middle of the room and stopped. “What’s happened to you, girl?”
Brin realized suddenly, through the haze of fatigue and pain that assailed her, how they must appear to these men. They might well have been something brought back from the dead-two worn and ragged things, their clothing damp and muddied, their faces white with exhaustion, hanging onto each other like straw-filled scarecrows. A bloodied strip of cloth had been bound about Rone’s head, but the rawness of the wound showed through. On his back, the scabbard that had once held the great broadsword lay empty. Her own face was soiled and drawn, and her dark eyes haunted. Spectral apparitions, they stood framed in the light of the open doorway, swaying unevenly against the night.
Brin tried to speak, but no words came out.
“Here, lend a hand,” the tall man called back to the others at the counter, coming forward at once to catch hold of Rone. “Come on now, lend a hand!”
A brawny woodsman came forward quickly, and the two ushered the Valegirl and the highlander to the nearest table, placing them on the low stools. Rone slumped forward with a groan, his head sagging.
“What’s happened to you?” the tall man repeated once again, helping to hold the highlander in place so he would not fall. “This one’s burning up with fever!”
Brin swallowed thickly. “We lost our horses in a fall coming down out of the mountains,” she lied. “He was sick before then, but it’s grown worse. We walked the riverbank until we found this place.
“My place,” the tall man informed her. “I’m a trader here. Jeft, draw a couple ales for these two.”
The woodsman slipped behind the counter to an ale keg and opened the spigot into two tall glasses.
“How about a free one for the rest of us, Stebb?” one of a group of hard-looking men at the fat end of the counter called out.
The trader shot the man a venomous look, brushed back a patch of thinning hair atop a mostly balding pate, and turned again to Brin. “Shouldn’t be in those mountains, girl. There’s worse than fever up there.”
Brin nodded wordlessly; swallowing against the dryness in her throat. A moment later the woodsman returned with the glasses of ale. He passed one to the Valegirl, then propped Rone up long enough to see that he sipped at the other. The highlander tried to grasp the glass and gulp the harsh liquid down, choking as he did. The woodsman moved the glass away firmly.
“Let him drink!” the speaker at the end of the bar called out again.
Another laughed. “Naw, it’s wasted! Any fool can see he’s dying!”
Brin glanced up angrily. The man who had spoken saw her look and sauntered toward her, his broad face breaking into an insolent grin. The others in the group trailed after, winking knowingly and chuckling.
“Something the matter, girl?” the speaker sneered. “Afraid you...?”
Instantly Brin was on her feet, barely aware of what she was doing as she snatched her long knife from its sheath and brought it up in front of his face.
“Now, now,” the woodsman Jeft interceded quickly at her side, pushing her gently back. “No need for that, is there?”
He turned to face the speaker, standing directly before him. The woodsman was a big man, and he towered over the men who had come down from the end of the counter. The members of the group glanced at one another uncertainly.
“Sure, Jeft, no harm meant,” the offender muttered. He looked down at Rone. “Just wondered about that scabbard. Crest looks like a royal seal of some type.” His dark eyes shifted to Brin. “Where you from, girl?”
He waited a moment, but Brin refused to answer. “No matter.” He shrugged. With his friends trailing after him he moved back down the counter. Gathering close to resume their drinking, they began conversing in low tones, their backs turned. The woodsman stared after them for a moment, then knelt down beside Brin.
“Worthless bunch,” he muttered. “Camp out west of Spanning Ridge masquerading as trappers. Live by their wits and the misfortune of others.”
“Been drinking and wasting time here since morning.” The trader shook his head. “Always got the money for the ale, though.” He looked at the Valegirl. “Feeling a little better now?”
Brin smiled in response. “Much better, thank you.” She glanced down at the dagger in her hand. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know what I was...”
“Hush, forget it.” The big woodsman patted her hand. “You’re exhausted.”
Beside him, Rone Leah moaned softly, his head lifting momentarily, his eyes open and staring into space. Then he slipped down again.
“I have to do something for him,” Brin insisted anxiously. “I have to find a way to break the fever. Do you have anything here that might help?”
The trader glanced at the woodsman worriedly, then shook his head. “I’ve not seen a fever as bad as this one often, girl. I have a tonic that might help. You can give it to the boy and see if it brings the fever out.” He shook his head again. “Sleep might be best, though.”
Brin nodded dumbly. She was having trouble thinking clearly, the exhaustion folding in about her as she sat staring down at the dagger. Slowly she slipped it back into its sheath. What had she been thinking she would do? She had never harmed anything in her entire life. Certainly the man from west of Spanning Ridge had been insolent, perhaps even threatening-but had there been any real danger to her? The ale burned warmly in her stomach, and a flush spread through her body. She was tired and strangely unnerved. Deep within, she felt an odd sense of loss and of slipping.
“Not much room in here for sleeping,” the trader Stebb was saying. “There’s a tack room in back of the stable I let the help use in the trapping season. You can have that. There’s a stove and bed for your friend and straw for you.”
“That would be fine,” Brin murmured and found to her astonishment that she was crying.
“Here, here.” The burly woodsman put an arm about her shoulders, blocking her away from the view of those gathered along the serving counter. “Won’t do for them to see that, girl. Got to be strong, now.”
Brin nodded wordlessly, wiped the tears away, and stood up. “I’m all right.”
“Blankets are out in the shed,” the trader announced, standing up with her. “Let’s get you settled in.”
With the aid of the woodsman, he brought Rone Leah back to his feet and walked him toward the rear of the trading center and down a short, darkened hallway that ran past a set of storage rooms. Brin shot a parting glance at the men gathered about their ale glasses before the serving counter and followed after. She didn’t much care for the looks directed back her way by the ones from west of Spanning Ridge.
A small wooden door opened out into the night at the back of the building, and the trader, the woodsman, Rone, and Brin moved toward the stable and its tack room. The trader slipped ahead, quickly lighted an oil lamp hanging from a peg on one wall, and then held wide the tack room door to admit the others. The room beyond was clean, though a bit musty, its walls hung with traces and harness. A small iron stove sat in one corner, shielded by a stone alcove. A single bed sat close beside it. A pair of shuttered windows stood against the night.
The trader and the woodsman laid the feverish highlander carefully on the bed and covered him with the blankets stacked at one end. Then they fired the iron stove until its wood was burning brightly and carried in a pallet of fresh straw for Brin.
As they were about to leave, the trader placed the oil lamp on a stone ledge next to the stove and turned briefly to Brin.
“Here’s the tonic for his fever.” He passed a small, amber-colored bottle to the Valegirl. “Give him two swallows-no more. In the morning, two more.” He shook his head doubtfully. “Hope it helps, girl.”
He started through the doorway with the woodsman in tow. Then once more he turned. “There’s a latch on this door,” he declared, pausing. “Keep it drawn.”
He closed the door softly behind him. Brin walked over and drew the latch into place. From just without, she could hear the voices of the trader and the woodsman as they talked.
“A bad lot, that Spanning Ridge bunch,” the woodsman muttered.
“Bad as any,” the trader agreed.
They were silent for a moment.
“Time for me to be on my way,” the woodsman said. “Several hours back to the camp.”
“Safe journey,” the trader replied.
They started to move away, their words fading.
“You’d best watch yourself that that bunch inside, Stebb,” the woodsman advised. “Watch yourself close.”
Then the words died away completely and the two were gone.
Brin turned back to Rone within the silence of the tack room. Propping him up carefully, she forced him to take two swallows of the tonic provided by the trader. When he had taken the medicine, she laid him down again and covered him up.
Then she took a seat next to the stove, wrapped herself in her blanket, and sat back wordlessly. On the wall of the little room, cast by the solitary flame of the oil lamp, her shadow rose up before her like a dark giant.
The charred stump of still-burning log collapsed with a thud inside the stove as the ashes beneath it gave way, and Brin woke with a start. She had dozed, she realized, but didn’t know for how long. She rubbed her eyes wearily and glanced about. The tack room was dark and still, the flame of the oil lamp faint and lonely in a gathering of shadows.
She thought immediately of Allanon. It was difficult still for her to accept that the Druid was gone. An expectation lingered within her that at any moment there would come a sharp knock upon the latched door and his deep voice would call to her. Like a shadow that came and went with the passing of the light-that was the way that Rone had described him that last night before the Druid died...
She caught herself sharply, strangely ashamed that she had allowed herself to even think the word. But Allanon had died, passing from the world of mortal men as all must, going from the Four Lands in the arms of his father-perhaps to where Bremen kept watch. She thought about that possibility for a moment. Could it be that he had indeed gone to be with his father? She remembered his words to her. “When your quest is done, Brin, you will find me here.” Did that mean that he, too, had locked himself into a limbo existence between the worlds of life and death?
There were tears in her eyes, and she wiped them hurriedly away. She could not permit herself tears. Allanon was gone, and she was alone.
Rone Leah stirred restlessly beneath the heavy blankets, his breathing harsh and uneven. She rose slowly and moved to where he lay. The lean, sunburned face was hot, dry, and drawn tight against the fever that ravaged his body. He shivered momentarily as she watched, as if suddenly chill, then went taut. Words whispered on his lips, their meaning lost.
What am I to do with him? the Valegirl asked herself helplessly. Would that I had my father’s skill. I have given him the tonic provided by the trader. I have wrapped him in blankets to keep him warm. But none of it seems to be helping. What else am I to do?
It was the Jachyra’s poison that was infecting him, she knew. Allanon had said that the poison attacked not just the body, but the spirit as well. It had killed the Druid-and while his wounds had been so much worse than Rone’s, still he was Allanon and much the stronger of the two. Even the lesser damage suffered by the highlander was proving to be more than his body could fight.
She sank down next to his bed, her hand closing gently about his. Her protector. She smiled sadly-who would now protect him?
Memories slipped like quicksilver through her mind, jumbled and confused. They had gone through so much to reach this lonely, desperate night, she and Rone Leah. And at what terrible cost. Paranor was gone. Allanon was dead. Even the Sword of Leah, the one real piece of magic they possessed between them, was gone. All that was left was the wishsong.
Yet Allanon had said the wishsong would be enough...
Booted feet shuffled softly on the earthen floor of the stable without. Blessed with the Elven senses of her forefathers, she caught the noise where another might have missed it. Hurriedly, she dropped Rone’s hand and scrambled to her feet, her Weariness forgotten.
Someone was out there-someone who didn’t want to be heard.
One hand crept guardedly to the haft of the long knife sheathed at her waist, then dropped away. She could not do that. She would not.
The latch on the door jiggled softly and caught.
“Who’s there?” she called out.
A low cursing sounded from just outside, and abruptly several heavy bodies slammed into the tack room door. Brin backed away, searching hurriedly for another way out. There was none. Again the bodies slammed into the door. The iron latch gave way with an audible snap and five dark forms came crashing into the room, the faint light of the oil lamp glinting dully off drawn knives. They gathered in a knot at the edge of the shadows, grunting and mumbling drunkenly as they faced the girl.
“Get out of here!” she snapped, anger and fear racing through her.
Laughter greeted her words, and the foremost of the intruders stepped forward into the light. She knew him at once. He was one of those from west of Spanning Ridge, one of those the trader Stebb had called thieves.
“Pretty girl,” he muttered, his words slurred. “Come on...over here.”
The five crept forward, spreading out across the darkened room. She might have tried to break past them, but that would have meant leaving Rone and she had no intention of doing that. Again, her hand closed. about the long knife.
“Now, don’t do that...” the speaker whispered, edging closer. Suddenly he lunged, quicker than the girl would have thought after having drunk so much, and his hand fastened about her wrist, yanking it away from the weapon. Instantly the others closed in, hands grasping her clothing, pulling her to them, pulling her down. She fought back wildly, striking out at her attackers. But they were much stronger than she and they were hurting her.
Then something within her seemed to snap as surely as had the latch on the tack room door when broken. Her thoughts scattered, and everything she was disappeared in a flash of blinding anger. What happened next was all instinct, hard and quick. She sang, the wishsong a new and different sound than any that had gone before. It filled the shadowed room with a fury that whispered of death and mindless destruction. Her attackers staggered back from the Valegirl, eyes and mouths widening in shock and disbelief, and hands coming up to cover their ears. They doubled over in agony as the wishsong penetrated their senses and crushed in about their minds. Madness rang in its call, frenzy and hurt so bitter it could almost be seen.
The five from west of Spanning Ridge were smothered in the sound. They fell against one another as they groped for the door that had brought them in. From their open mouths, shrieks came back in answer to the Valegirl’s song. Still she did not stop. Her fury was so complete that reason could find no means to stem it. The wishsong rose, and the animals in the stable kicked and slammed wildly against their stalls, crying out their pain as the girl’s voice ripped at them.
Then the five at last found the open doorway and stumbled from the tack room in maddened desperation, curled over like broken things, shaking and whimpering. Blood ran from their mouths, from their ears, and from their noses. Hands covered their faces, the fingers knotted into claws.
Brin saw them anew in that instant as the blindness of her fury left her. She also saw the trader Stebb appear suddenly from the darkness as the intruders ran past, a look of horror in his face as he, too, stopped and backed away, hands held frantically before him. Reason returned in a rush of guilt, and the wishsong died into stillness.
“Oh, shades...” she cried softly and collapsed in stricken disbelief.
Midnight came and went. The trader had left her alone again and gone back to the comfort and sanity of his own lodgings, his eyes frightened and haunted. In the darkness of the forest clearing that sheltered the Rooker Line Trading Center, all was still.
She sat curled close to the iron stove. Fresh wood burned in it, snapping and sparking in the silence. She sat with her legs drawn up against her chest, her arms wrapped about them like a child lost in thought.
But her thoughts were dark and filled with demons. Fragments of Allanon’s words lay scattered in those thoughts, whispering of what she had for so long refused to heat. The wishsong is power-power like nothing I have ever seen. It will protect you. It will see you safely through your quest. It will destroy the Ildatch.
Or destroy me, she answered back. Or destroy those about me. It can kill. It can make me kill.
She stirred finally, cramped and aching from the position she had held for so long, her dark eyes glistening with fear. She stared through the grated door of the iron stove, watching the red glare of the flames as they danced within. She might have killed those five men from west of Spanning Ridge, she thought despairingly. She would have killed them, perhaps, had they not found the door.
Her throat tightened. What was to prevent that from happening the next time she was forced to use the wishsong?
Behind her, Rone moaned softly, thrashing beneath the blankets that covered him. She turned slowly to find his face, bending close to stroke his forehead. His skin was deathly pale now, feverish, hot, and drawn. His breathing was worse as well, turned shallow and raspy, as if each breath were an effort that sapped him of his strength.
She knelt beside him, her head shaking. The tonic had not helped. He was growing weaker, and the poison was working deeper into his system, draining him of his life. If it were not stopped, he was going to die...
Like Allanon.
“No!” she cried softly, urgently, and she gripped his hand in hers as if she might hold back the life that seeped away.
She knew in that instant what she must do. Savior and destroyer-that was what the shade of Bremen had named her. Very well. To those thieves from west of Spanning Ridge, she had been destroyer. Perhaps to Rone Leah she could be savior.
Still holding his hand with her own, she bent close to his ear and began to sing. Softly, gently the wishsong slipped from her lips, floating like invisible smoke through the air about them both. Carefully, she reached out to the sickened highlander, probing for the hurt he felt, searching out the source of the poison that was killing him.
I must try, she told herself as she sang. I must! By morning he will be gone, the poison spread all through him-poison that attacks the spirit as well as the body. Allanon had said it was so. Perhaps, then, the Elven magic can find a means to heal.
She sang, sweet and lingering tones that wrapped the highlander close about and brought him to her. Slowly, he began to cease his shivering and thrashing and to become still beneath the calming sound. He slipped down into the blankets, his breathing growing steadier and stronger.
The minutes slipped away with agonizing slowness as the Valegirl sang on and waited for the change she somehow sensed must come. When at last it did, it came so suddenly that she nearly lost control of what she was about. From the ravaged, wasted body of Rone Leah, the poison of the Jachyra lifted in a red mist-dissipating out of the unconscious highlander to float above him, swirling wickedly in the dim light of the oil lamp. Hissing, it hung above its victim for an instant as Brin interposed the magic of the wishsong between its touch and the body of Rone Leah. Then slowly it faded into nothingness and was gone.
On the bed beside her, sweat bathed the face of the Prince of Leah. The drawn and haggard look was gone, and the breathing was steady and even once more. Brin stared down at him through a veil of tears as the wishsong died into silence.
I have done it, she cried softly. I have used the magic for good. Savior this time-not destroyer.
Still kneeling beside him, she buried her face in the warmth of his body, her arms holding him close. In moments, she was asleep.
They stayed on for two days at the Rooker Line Trading Center, waiting for Rone to regain strength enough to resume the journey east. The fever was gone by morning and the highlander was resting comfortably, but he was still entirely too weak to attempt to travel. So Brin asked permission of the trader Stebb to keep the use of the tack room for one day more, and the trader agreed. He provided them with food for their meals, rations of ale, medicines, and blankets, and he refused quickly all offers of payment. He was happy to be of help to them, he assured the Valegirl. But he was uneasy in her presence and he never quite managed to let his eyes meet hers. Brin understood well enough what was happening. The trader was a kind and decent man, but now he was frightened of her and of what she might do to him if he refused it. He would probably have helped her out of his basic generosity, but fear had added urgency to his impulse. He obviously felt that this was the quickest and most expedient way to get her out of his life.
She remained for the most part within the confines of the little tack room with Rone, seeing to his needs and talking with him of what had befallen them since the death of Allanon. Talking about it seemed to help; while both were still stunned by what had happened, the sharing of their feelings brought forth a common determination that they must go forward to complete the quest that the Druid had left to them. A new closeness developed between them, stronger and more certain in its purpose. With the death of Allanon, they now had only each other upon whom to rely and each felt new value in the other’s presence. Alone together in the solitude of their tiny room at the rear of the trader’s stables, they spoke in hushed tones of the choices that had been made to bring them to this point in their lives and of those that must yet be made. Slowly, surely, they bound themselves as one.
Yet despite their binding together in spirit and cause, there remained some things of which Brin could not bring herself to speak, even to Rone Leah. She could not tell him of the blood that Allanon had taken from his own ravaged body to place upon her-blood that in some way was meant to pledge her to him, even in death. Nor could she tell Rone of the uses to which she had put the wishsong-once in fury to destroy human life, a second time in desperation to save it. She could speak of none of these things to the highlander-in part because she did not fully understand them, in part because the implications frightened her so greatly that she was not sure she wanted to. The blood oath was too remote in purpose now for her to dwell upon, and the cases of the wishsong were the result of emotions that she promised herself she would not let get away from her again.
There was another reason for not speaking to Rone of these things. The highlander was troubled enough as matters stood by the loss of the Sword of Leah-so troubled, in fact, that he could seem to think of little else. He meant to have the sword back again, he told her over and over. He would search it out and reclaim it whatever the cost. His insistence frightened her, for he seemed to have bound himself to the sword with such need that it was as if the weapon had somehow become a part of him. Without it, she guessed, the highlander did not believe that he could survive what lay ahead. Rone felt that without it he must surely be lost.
All the while she listened to him talk of this and thought about how deeply he seemed now to depend on the magic of the blade, she pondered as well her own dependence on the wishsong. It was just a toy, she had always told herself-but that was a lie. It was anything but a toy; it was magic every bit as dangerous as that contained in the missing Sword of Leah. It could kill. It was, in fact, what her father had always said-a birthright that she would have been better off without. Allanon had warned her as he lay dying. “The power of the wishsong is like nothing I have ever seen.” The words whispered darkly as she listened to Rone. Power to heal-power to destroy-she had seen them both. Must she be as dependent on the magic as Rone now seemed to be? Between her and the Elven magic, which was to be master?
Her father had fought his own battle to discover the answer to that question, she knew. He had fought it when he had struggled to overcome his inability to master the power of the magic contained within the Elfstones. He had done so, survived the staggering forces it had unleashed within him, and then cast it aside forever. Yet his brief use of the power had exacted its price-a transmutation of the magic from the Elfstones to his children. So now, perhaps, the battle must be fought yet another time. But what if this time the power could not be controlled?
The second day drifted into night. The Valegirl and the highlander ate the meal brought to them by the trader and watched the darkness deepen. When Rone had grown weary and rolled into his blankets to sleep, Brin slipped out into the cool autumn night to breathe smells that were sharp and clean and to lose herself for a time in skies grown bright with a crescent moon and stars. On her way past the trading center, she caught sight of the trader as he sat smoking his pipe on the empty veranda, his high-backed chair tilted against the rail. No one had come by for drinks or talk that evening, so he sat alone.
Quietly, she walked over to him.
“Evening,” he greeted hastily, sitting forward a bit too quickly in the chair, almost as if he were poised to flee.
Brin nodded. “We will be leaving in the morning,” she informed him and thought she detected a look of immediate relief in his dark eyes. “But I wanted to thank you first for your help.”
He shook his head. “No need.” He paused, brushing back his thinning hair. “I’ll see to it that you have some supplies to get you through the first few days or so.”
Brin didn’t argue. It was pointless to do anything other than simply to accept what was offered.
“Would you have an ash bow?” she asked, thinking suddenly of Rone. “One that could be used for hunting when we...?”
“Ash bow? Got one right here, as a matter of fact.” The trader was on his feet at once. He ducked through the doorway leading into the center and emerged a moment later with a bow and quiver of arrows. “You take these,” he pressed. “No charge, of course. Good, solid weapons. Belong to you, anyway, since they were dropped by those fellows you chased off.” He caught himself, and cleared his throat self-consciously. “Anyway, you take them,” he finished.
He set, them down in front of her and dropped back into his chair, fingers drumming nervously on the wooden arm.
Brin picked up the bow and arrows. “They don’t really belong to me, you know,” she said quietly. “Especially not because of...what happened.”
The trader looked down at his feet. “Don’t belong to me, either. You take them, girl.”
There was a long silence. The trader stared past her resolutely into the dark. Brin shook her head. “Do you know anything of the country east of here?” she asked him.
He kept his eyes turned away. “Not much. It’s bad country.”
“Is there anybody who might know?”
The trader didn’t answer.
“What about the woodsman who was here the other night?”
“Jeft?” The trader was silent for a moment. “I suppose. He’s been a lot of places.”
“How would I find him?” she pressed, growing increasingly uncomfortable with the man’s reticence.
The trader’s brows knitted. He was thinking about what answer he should give her. Finally, he looked directly at her. “You don’t mean him any harm, do you, girl?”
Brin stared at him sadly for a moment, then shook her head. “No, I don’t mean him any harm.”
The trader studied her a moment, then looked away. “He’s a friend, you see.” Then he pointed out toward the Chard Rush. “He’s got a camp a few miles downriver, south bank..”
Brin nodded. She started to turn away, then stopped. “I am the same person I was when you helped me that first night,” she said quietly.
Leather boots scuffed against the wooden planks of the porch. “Maybe it just don’t seem that way to me,” came the response.
Her mouth tightened. “You don’t have to be afraid of me, you know. You really don’t.”
The boots went still and the trader looked down at them. “I’m not afraid,” he said, his voice low.
She waited a moment longer, searching futilely for something more to say, then turned and walked into the dark.
The following morning, shortly after daybreak, Brin and Rone departed the Rooker Line Trading Center for the country that lay east. Carrying foodstuffs, blankets, and the bow supplied by the trader, they bade the anxious man farewell and disappeared into the trees.
It was a bright, warm day that greeted them. As they made their way downriver along the south bank of the Chard Rush, the air was filled with the sounds of forest life and the smell of drying leaves. A west wind blew gently out of the distant Wolfsktaag, and leaves drifted earthward in lazy spirals to lie thick upon the forest ground. Through the trees, the land ahead could be seen to run on in a gentle sloping of rises and vales. Squirrels and chipmunks scattered and darted away at the sound of their approach, interrupted in their preparations for a winter that seemed far distant from this day.
At midmorning, Valegirl and highlander paused to rest for a time, sitting side by side on an old log, hollowed out and worm-eaten with age. In front of them, barely a dozen yards distant, the Chard Rush flowed steadily eastward into the deep Anar; in its grasp, deadwood and debris that was washed down from out of the high country twisted and turned in intricate patterns.
“It’s still hard for me to believe that he’s really gone,” Rone said after a time, eyes gazing out across the river.
Brin didn’t have to ask whom he meant. “For me, too,” she acknowledged softly. “I sometimes think that he really isn’t gone at all-that I was mistaken in what I saw-that if I am patient, he will come back, just as he always has.”
“Would that be so strange?” Rone mused. “Would it be so surprising if Allanon were to do exactly that?”
The Valegirl looked at him. “He is dead, Rone.”
Rone kept his face turned away, but nodded. “I know.” He was quiet for a moment before continuing. “Do you think that there was anything that could have been done to save him, Brin?”
He looked at the girl then. He was asking her if there was anything that he could have done. Brin’s smile was quick and bitter. “No, Rone. He knew that he was going to die; he was told that he would not complete this quest. He had accepted the inevitability of that, I think.”
Rone shook his head. “I would not have done so.”
“Nor I, I suppose,” Brin agreed. “Perhaps that was why he chose to tell us nothing of what was to happen. And perhaps his acceptance is something we cannot hope to understand, because we could never hope to understand him.”
The highlander leaned forward, his arms braced against his outstretched legs. “So the last of the Druids disappears from the land, and there is no one left to stand against the walkers except you and me.” He shook his head hopelessly. “Poor us.”
Brin glanced down self-consciously at her hands, folded in her lap before her. She remembered Allanon touching her forehead with his blood as he lay dying and she shivered with the memory.
“Poor us,” she echoed softly.
They rested for a few minutes longer, then resumed their journey east. Barely an hour later, they crossed a shallow, gravel-bottomed stream that meandered lazily away from the swifter flow of the main channel of the Chard Rush back along a worn gully. They caught sight of a single-room cabin that sat back in among the forest trees. Built from hand-cut logs laid crosswise and caulked with mortar, the little home was settled in a clearing upon a small rise that formed a threshold to a series of low hills sloping gently away into the forest. A handful of sheep and goats and a single milk cow grazed in the timber behind the cabin. At the sound of their approach, an aged hunting dog rose from his favorite napping spot next to the cabin stoop and stretched contentedly.
The woodsman Jeft stood at the far side of the little clearing, stripped to the waist as he cut firewood. With a sure, practiced swing downward of the long-handled axe, he split the piece of timber that stood upright on the worn stump that served as a chopping block. Working the embedded blade free, he brushed aside the cloven halves before pausing in his work to watch his visitors approach. Lowering the axe-head to the stump, he rested his gnarled hands on the smooth butt of the handle and waited.
“Morning,” Brin greeted as they came up to him.
“Morning,” the woodsman replied, nodding. He seemed pot at all surprised that they were there. He glanced at Rone. “Feeling a bit better, are you?”
“Much,” Rone answered. “Thanks in part to you, I’m told.”
The woodsman shrugged, the muscles on his powerful body knotting. He gestured toward the cabin. “There’s drinking water on the stoop in that bucket. I bring it fresh from the hills in back each day.”
He led them down to the cabin porch and the promised bucket. All three took a long drink. Then they seated themselves on the stoop, and the woodsman produced pipe and tobacco. He offered the pouch to his guests, but they declined, so he packed the bowl of his own pipe and began to smoke.
“Everything fine back at the trading center?” he asked casually. There was a long silence. “I heard about what happened the other night with that bunch from Spanning Ridge country.”
His eyes shifted slowly to Brin. “Word has a way of getting around a lot quicker than you’d think out here.”
The Valegirl held his gaze, ignoring her discomfort. “The trader told us where to find you,” she informed him. “He said you might be able to help us.”
The woodsman puffed on the pipe. “In what way?”
“He told us that you know as much as anyone about this country.”
“I’ve been out here a long time,” the man agreed.
Brin leaned forward. “We are already in your debt for what you did to help us back at the trading center. But we need your help again. We need to find a way through the country that lies east of here.”
The woodsman stared at her sharply, then slowly removed the pipe from between his teeth. “East of here? You mean Darklin Reach?”
Both Valegirl and highlander nodded.
The woodsman shook his head doubtfully. “That’s dangerous country. No one goes into Darklin Reach if they can avoid it.” He glanced up. “How far in do you plan to go?”
“All the way,” Brin said quietly. “And then into Olden Moor and the Ravenshorn.”
“You’re mad as jays,” the woodsman announced matter-of-factly and knocked the ashes from the pipe, grinding them into the earth with his boot. “Gnomes and walkers and worse own that country. You’ll never come out alive.”
There was no reply. The woodsman studied their faces in turn, rubbed his bearded chin thoughtfully, and finally shrugged.
“Guess you’ve got your own reasons for doing this, and it’s none of my business what they are. But I’m telling you here and now that you’re making a big mistake-maybe the biggest mistake you’ll ever make. Even the trappers stay clear of that country. Men disappear up there like smoke-gone without a trace.”
He waited for a reply. Brin glanced briefly at Rone and then back at the woodsman once more. “We have to go. Can you help us?”
“Me?” The woodsman grinned crookedly and shook his head. “Not me, girl. Even if I was to go with you-which I won’t, ‘cause I like living-I’d be lost myself after the first day or so.”
He paused, studying them shrewdly. “I suppose you’re set on this?”
Brin nodded wordlessly, waiting.
The woodsman sighed. “Maybe there’s someone else who can help you then-if you’re sure this is what you want.” He blew sharply through the stem of his pipe to clean it, then folded his arms across his broad chest. “There’s an old man named Cogline. Must be ninety by now if he’s still alive. Haven’t seen him for almost two years, so I can’t be sure if he’s even there anymore. Two years ago, though, he was living up around a rock formation called Hearthstone that sits right in the middle of Darklin Reach-formation that looks just like a big chimney.” He shook his head doubtfully. “I can give you directions, but the trails aren’t much. That’s wild country; hardly anything human living that far east that isn’t Gnome.”
“Do you think he would help us?” Brin pressed anxiously.
The woodsman shrugged. “He knows the country. He’s lived there all his life. Doesn’t bother coming out more than once a year or so-not even that the last two. Stays alive somehow in that jungle.” The heavy brows lifted. “He’s an odd duck, old Cogline. Crazier than a fish swimming through grass. He might be more trouble than help to you.”
“We’ll be all right,” Brin assured him.
“Maybe.” The woodsman looked her over carefully. “You’re a pretty thing to be wandering off into that country, girl-even with your singing to protect you. There’s more than thieves and cowards out there. I’d think on this before you go any further with it.”
“We have thought.” Brin came to her feet. “We’re decided.”
The woodsman nodded. “You’re welcome to take with you all the water you can carry, then. At least you won’t die of thirst.”
He helped them refill their water pouches, carrying a fresh bucket of water from the spring that ran down out of the hills behind his cabin, then took several minutes more to give them the directions they needed to reach Hearthstone, scratching a crude map in the earth before the stoop.
“Look after yourselves,” he admonished, offering each a firm handshake.
With a final word of farewell, Brin and Rone hitched up their provisions across their backs and walked slowly from the little cabin into the trees. Behind them, the woodsman stood watching. It was clear from the look on his bearded face that he did not expect to see them pass that way again.
They journeyed through that day and the next, following the twists and turns of the Chard Rush as it wound steadily deeper through the forests of the Anar and crossed into Darklin Reach. Rone was gaining in strength, but he had not yet fully recovered, and progress was slow. After a brief meal on the second evening, he went directly to sleep.
Brin sat before the fire, staring into the flames. Her mind was still filled with unhappy memories and dark thoughts. Once, before she felt herself growing sleepy, it seemed that Jair was with her. Unconsciously, she looked up, seeking him. But there was no one there, and logic told her that her brother was far away, indeed. She sighed, banked the fire, and crawled into her blankets.
It was not until well into the afternoon of the third day following their departure from the Rooker Line Trading Center that Brin and Rone caught sight of a singular rock formation that loomed blackly in the distance and knew that they had found Hearthstone.
Hearthstone was a dark, clear silhouette against the changing colors of autumn, its rugged pinnacle dominating the shallow, wooded valley over which it stood watch. Chimneylike in appearance, the formation was a mass of weathered stone carved by nature’s fine hand and shaped with. the passing of the years. Silence hung starkly over its towering shadow. Solitary and enduring, it beckoned compellingly from out of the dark sea of the vast, sprawling forestland of Darklin Reach.
Standing at the crest of a ridge, staring out across the land, Brin felt its unspoken whisper call out through her weariness and her uncertainty and experienced an unexpected sense of peace. Another leg of the long trek east was almost over. The memories of what she had endured to reach this point and the warnings of what yet lay ahead were strangely distant now. She smiled at Rone and the smile clearly caught the highlander by surprise. Then, touching his arm gently, she started downward along the shallow valley slope.
The barely discernible line of a trail snaked down through the wall of the great trees. As the sun moved steadily toward the western horizon, the forest closed about them once more. They picked their way carefully over fallen logs and around jagged rock formations until the thickly grown slope leveled off at its base. Within the forested canopy of the valley, the pathway broadened and then disappeared altogether as the dense scrub brush and fallen timber began to thin. Warm afternoon sunlight flooded softly through the cracks and chinks of the interwoven branches overhead and lighted the whole of the darkened woodland. Dozens of wide, pleasant little clearings pocketed the valley forest and lent a feeling of space and openness. The earth grew soft and loose, free from rock and carpeted with a layer of small twigs and leaves that rustled gently as the Valegirl and the highlander walked across them.
There was a sense of comfort and familiarity to this little valley that was foreign to the wilderness that lay about it, and Brin Ohmsford found herself thinking of Shady Vale. The life sounds, insect and animal, the brief traces of movement through the trees, sudden and furtive, even the warm, fresh smell of the autumn woods-all were similar to that distant Southland village. There was no Rappahalladran, yet there were dozens of tiny streams meandering lazily across their path. The Valegirl breathed deeply. No wonder the woodsman Cogline had chosen this valley for his home.
The travelers passed deeper into the forest, and time slipped slowly from them. Now and again they caught brief glimpses of Hearthstone through the webbing of the dark forest limbs, its towering shadow black against the blue of the sky, and they pointed themselves toward it. They walked in silence, worn and anxious to be done with the day’s long march, their thoughts concentrated on the terrain ahead and the sounds and sights of the forest.
At last Rone Leah came to a stop, one hand fastening guardedly on Brin’s arm as he peered ahead.
“Hear that?” he asked quietly, after listening for a moment.
Brin nodded. It was a voice-thin, almost inaudible, but clearly human. They waited a moment, gauging its direction, then began walking toward it. The voice disappeared for a time, then returned, louder, almost angry. Whoever was speaking was directly, ahead.
“You had better show yourself and right now!” The voice was high and strident. “I’ve no time for games!”
There was some muttering and cursing, and the Valegirl and the highlander looked at each other questioningly.
“Come out, come out, come out!” the voice shrilled, then trailed off in an angry murmur. “Should have left you back on the moor...if it wasn’t for my kind heart...”
There was more cursing, and the sound of someone crashing through the underbrush reached their ears.
“I’ve a few tricks myself, you know! I’ve got powders to blow the ground right out from under you and potions that would tie you in knots! Think you know so much, you...Let’s see you climb a rope! Let’s see you do that! Let’s see you do anything besides cause me trouble! How would you like me to leave you here? How would you like that? Wouldn’t think yourself so smart then, I’ll wager! Now get out here!”
Brin and Rone stepped through the screen of trees and brush blocking their view and found themselves at the edge of a small clearing with a wide, still pond at its center. Across from them, crawling aimlessly about on his hands and knees was an old man. He scrambled to his feet at the sound of their approach.
“Ha! So you’ve decided...!” He stopped short as he saw them. “Who are you supposed to be? No, never mind who you are. It doesn’t make a twig’s difference. Just get out of here and go back to wherever it was you came from.”
He turned from them with a dismissive gesture and resumed crawling along the forest’s edge, his skeletal arms groping left and right, his thin, hunched body like a twisted bit of deadwood. Great tufts of ragged white hair and beard hung down about his shoulders, and his green-colored clothes and half-cloak were tattered and worn. The Valegirl and the highlander stared blankly at him and then at each other.
“This is ridiculous!” the old man stormed, directing his wrath at the silent trees. Then he looked around and saw that the travelers were still there. “Well, what are you waiting for? Get out of here! This is my house, and I didn’t invite you! So get out, get out!”
“This is where you live?” Rone asked, glancing about doubtfully.
The old man looked at him as if he were an idiot. “Didn’t, you just hear me say so? What else do you think I’d be doing here at this hour?”
“I don’t know,” the highlander admitted.
“A man should be in his home at this hour!” the other continued in something of a scolding tone. “As a matter of fact, what are you doing here? Don’t you have homes of your own to go to?”
“We’ve come all the way from Shady Vale in the Southland.” Brin tried to explain, but the old man just stared-blankly at her. “It’s below the Rainbow Lake, several days’ ride.” The old man’s expression never changed. “Anyway, we’ve come here looking for someone who...”
“No one here but me.” The old man shook his head firmly. “Except for Whisper, and I can’t find him. Where do you think...?”
He trailed off distractedly, turning again from them as if to resume his hunt for whoever it was that was missing. Brin glanced doubtfully at Rone.
“Wait a minute!” she called after the old man, who looked around sharply. “A woodsman told us about this man. He told us he lived here. He said that his name was Cogline.”
The old man shrugged. “Never heard of him.”
“Well, maybe he lives in some other part of the valley. Maybe you could tell us where we might...”
“You don’t listen very well, do you?” the other interrupted irritably. “Now I don’t know where it is that you come from-don’t care either-but I’ll wager you don’t have strange people running around your home, do you? I’ll wager you know everyone living there or visiting there or whatever! So what makes you think it’s any different with me?”
“You mean this whole valley is your home?” Rone demanded incredulously.
“Of course it’s my home! I just told you that half a dozen different times! Now get out of it and leave me in peace!”
He stamped one sandaled foot vehemently and waited for them to go. But the Valegirl and the highlander just stood there.
“This is Hearthstone, isn’t it?” Rone pressed, growing a bit angry with this cantankerous oldster.
The fellow’s thin jaw stiffened resolutely. “What if it is?”
“Well, if it is, there is a man living here by the name of Cogline-or at least there was up until two years ago. He’d been living here for years before that, we were told. So if you’ve been out here for any length of time, you ought to know something about him!”
The old man was silent for a moment, his craggy brows tightening in thought. Then he shook his wispy head firmly. “Told you before, I never heard of him. No one around here with that name now or any other time. No one.”
But Brin had seen something in the old man’s eyes. She took a step closer to him and stopped. “You know the name, don’t you? Cogline-you know it.”
The old man stood his ground. “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. In any case, I don’t have to tell you!”
Brin pointed. “You’re Cogline, aren’t you?”
The old man erupted in a violent fit of laughter. “Me? Cogline? Ha-ha, now wouldn’t that be something! Oh, I would be talented, indeed! Ha-ha, now that’s funny!”
Valegirl and highlander stared at him in amazement as he doubled over sharply and fell to the ground, laughing hysterically. Rone took Brin by the arm and turned her toward him.
“For cat’s sake, Brin-this old man’s crazy!” ha whispered.
“What did you say? Crazy am I?” The oldster was back on his feet, his weathered face flushed with anger. “I ought to show you just how crazy! Now you get out of my house! I didn’t want you here in the first place, and I don’t want you here now! Get out!”
“We didn’t mean any harm,” a flustered Rone tried to apologize.
“Get out, get out, get out! I’ll turn you into puffs of smoke! I’ll set fire to you and watch you burn. I’ll...I’ll...”
He was jumping up and down in uncontrollable fury, his bony hands knotted tightly into fists, his tufted white hair flying wildly in all directions. Rone came forward to calm him.
“Stay away from me!” the other fairly shrieked, one thin arm pointing like a weapon. The highlander stopped at once. “Stay back! Oh, where’s that stupid...! Whisper!”
Rone glanced about expectantly, but no one appeared. The old man was beside himself with anger now and he whirled about, shouting into the forest darkness and flinging his arms about like windmills.
“Whisper! Whisper! Get out here and protect me from these troublemakers! Whisper, drat you! Will you let them kill me? Should I just give myself over to them? What good are you, you fool...! Oh, I never should have wasted my time on you! Get out here! Right now!”
The Valegirl and the highlander watched the antics of the old fellow with a mixture of wariness and amusement. Whoever Whisper was, he had apparently decided some time back that he wanted nothing to do with any of this. Yet the old man was not about to give up. He continued leaping about hysterically and shouting at nothing. Finally, Rone turned again to Brin.
“This is getting us nowhere,” he declared, keeping his voice purposefully low. “Let’s be on our way-look about on our own. The old man’s obviously lost his mind.”
But Brin shook her head, remembering what the woodsman Jeft had said about Cogline: an odd duck, crazier than a fish swimming through grass. “Let me try one more time,” she replied.
She started forward, but the old man turned on her at once. “Wouldn’t listen to me, is that it? Well, I gave you fair warning. Whisper! Where are you? Get out here! Get her! Get her!”
Brin drew up short in spite of herself and looked about. Still there was no one in sight. Then Rone stalked past her, gesturing impatiently.
“Now look here, old man. Enough is enough. There’s no one else out here but you, so why don’t you just stop this...”
“Ha! No one else but me, you think?” The old man leaped into the air with glee and landed in a crouch. “I’ll show you who’s out here, you...you trespasser! Come into my house, will you? I’ll show you! Whisper! Whisper! Dratted...!”
Rone was shaking his head hopelessly and grinning when all of a sudden the biggest cat he had ever seen in his life appeared from out of nowhere right in front of him, no more than half a dozen yards away. Dark gray in color with spreading black panels on its flanks that ran upward across its sloping back, a black face, ears, and tail and wide, almost cumbersome-looking black paws, the beast measured well over ten feet and its massive, shaggy head rose even with his own. Corded muscles rippled beneath the sleek fur as it shook itself lazily and regarded the highlander and the Valegirl with luminous, deep blue eyes that blinked and narrowed. It seemed to study them for a moment, then its jaws parted in a soundless yawn, revealing a flash of gleaming, razor-sharp teeth.
Rone Leah swallowed hard and stayed perfectly still.
“Ah-ha! Not so funny now, I’ll wager!” the old man gloated and began chuckling merrily, his thin legs dancing about. “Thought I was crazy, did you? Thought I was just talking to myself, did you? Well, what do you think now?”
“Nobody meant you any harm,” Brin repeated as the big cat looked Rone over curiously.
The old man edged forward a step, his eyes brightening beneath the tufted hair that hung down about his wrinkled forehead.
“Think he might like you for supper? Is that what you think? He gets hungry, old Whisper does. The two of you would provide him with a nice bedtime snack! Ha! What’s the trouble? You look a little pale, like you might not feel so good. That’s too bad, too bad now. Maybe you ought to...”
The grin vanished suddenly from his face. “Whisper, no! Whisper, no, wait, don’t do that...!”
And with that, the big cat simply faded away and was gone, much as if he had evaporated. For a moment all three stared wonderingly at the space he had previously occupied. Then the old man stamped his foot angrily and kicked at the empty air in front of him.
“Drat you! You quit that, you hear me! Show yourself, you fool animal or I’ll...!” He trailed off wrathfully, then looked over at Brin and Rone. “You get out of my house! Get out!”
Rone Leah had had enough. A crazy old man and a disappearing cat were more than he had bargained for. He wheeled without a word and stalked past Brin, muttering for her to follow. But Brin hesitated, still not willing to give it up.
“You don’t understand how important this is!” she exclaimed heatedly. The old man stiffened. “You cannot just turn us away like this. We need your help. Please, tell us where we can find the man called Cogline.”
The old man regarded her silently, his sticklike body hunched and bent, his shaggy eyebrows knitting petulantly. Then abruptly he threw us his hands and shook his white head in resignation.
“Oh, very well-anything to get rid of you!” He sighed deeply aced did his best to look put upon. “It won’t help you a whit, you understand-not a whit!”
The Valegirl waited wordlessly. Behind her, Rone had turned back again. The old man cocked his head, reflecting. One thin hand ran quickly through the tangled hair.
“Old Cogline is right over there at the foot of the big rock.” He waved his hand almost casually in the direction of Hearthstone. “Right where I buried him almost a year ago.”
Brin Ohmsford stared fixedly at the old man, disappointment welling up inside and choking back the exclamation forming in her throat. One hand lifted in a helpless gesture.
“You mean that Cogline is dead?”
“Dead and buried!” the truculent oldster snapped. “Now be on your way and leave me in peace!”
He waited impatiently for the Valegirl and the highlander to go, but Brin could not bring herself to move. Cogline dead? Somehow she could not accept that he was. Would not word of that death by some means have gotten back to the woodsman Jeft or to others who lived in the forests that lay about the Rooker Line Trading Center? A man who had lived for as long as Cogline had in this wilderness, a man known to so many...? She caught herself. Possibly not, for woodsmen and trappers often stayed apart for months at a time. But who then was this old man? The woodsman had made no mention of him. Somehow it was all wrong.
“Let’s go, Brin,” Rone called to her gently.
But the Valegirl shook her head. “No. Not until I’m sure. Not until I can...”
“Get out of my house!” the old man repeated once again, stamping his foot petulantly. “I have put up with enough from you! Cogline is dead! Now if you’re not gone from here by the time I...”
“Grandfather!”
The voice broke sharply from out of the wooded darkness to their left where, in the distance, the rugged pinnacle of Hearthstone loomed blackly through the interwoven branches of the silent trees. Three heads jerked about as one, and the forest went suddenly still. Whisper reappeared to one side of them, his blue eyes luminous, his great, shaggy head raised and searching. The old man muttered to himself and stamped his foot one time more.
Then there was a soft rustling of leaves and the mysterious speaker appeared, stepping lightly into clearing. Brin and Rone turned to each other in surprise. It was a girl, barely older than Brin, her small, supple form clothed in pants and tunic and wrapped loosely in a braided short cloak of forest green. Long, curling ringlets of thick, dark hair hung down about her shoulders, softly shadowing a sun-browned, faintly freckled pixie face that was strangely beguiling, almost compelling in its look of innocence. It was a pretty face, and while not truly beautiful in the way of Brin’s, appealing nevertheless with its uncomplicated freshness and vitality. Dark, intelligent eyes mirrored frankness and honesty as she studied the Valegirl and the highlander curiously.
“Who are you?” she asked in a tone of voice that suggested that she had a right to know.
Brin glanced again at Rone and then back to the girl. “I’m Brin Ohmsford from Shady Vale and this is Rone Leah. We’ve come north from our homes in the Southland below the Rainbow Lake.
“You have come a long way,” the girl observed. “Why are you here?”
“To find a man named Cogline.”
“Do you know this man, Brin Ohmsford?”
“No.”
“Then why do you look for him?”
The girl’s eyes never left hers. Brin hesitated, wondering how much she should tell her. There was something about this girl that warned against lying, and Brin had not missed the way in which her sudden appearance had quieted the old man and brought back the disappearing cat. Still, the Valegirl was reluctant to reveal the whole of her reason for their being at Hearthstone without first finding out who she was.
“We were told that Cogline was the man who best knew the forestland from Darklin Reach east to the Ravenshorn,” she replied guardedly. “We were hoping he would offer his services on a matter of great importance.”
The girl was silent for a moment, apparently considering what Brin had told her. The old man shuffled over to where she stood and began fidgeting..
“They’re trespassers and troublemakers!” he insisted vehemently.
The girl did not reply nor even look at him, her dark eyes still locked into grin’s, her slim form motionless. The old man threw up his hands in exasperation.
“You shouldn’t even be talking with them! You should throw them out!”
The girl shook her head slowly then. “Hush, grandfather,” she cautioned. “They mean us no harm. Whisper would know if they did.”
Brin glanced quickly at the big cat, who was stretched out almost playfully in the tall grass bordering the little pond, one great paw flicking idly at some hapless insect flying past. The great oval eyes shone like twin beacons of light as he glanced over at them.
“That fool animal won’t even come when I call him!” the old man groused. “How can you depend on him?”
The girl looked at the old man reprovingly, a hint of defiance crossing her youthful features. “Whisper!” she called softly and pointed at Brin. “Track!”
The big cat suddenly came to his feet and without a sound padded over to Brin. The Valegirl stiffened as the beast’s black muzzle sniffed tentatively at her clothing. Cautiously, she started to step back.
“Stand still,” the girl advised her quietly.
Brin did as she was told. Forcing herself to remain outwardly calm, she stood frozen in place as the huge animal sniffed downward along her pant leg in a leisurely fashion. The girl was testing her, she realized-using the cat to see how she would react. The skin on the back of her neck prickled as the muzzle pushed at her. What should she do? Should she continue just to stand there? Should she touch the beast to show that she was not afraid? But she was afraid, and the fear was spreading all through her. Surely the animal would smell it, and then...
She made up her mind. Softly, she began to sing. The words hovered in the dark stillness of the evening, floating in the quiet of the little clearing, reaching out, touching like gentle fingers.
It took only a few moments for the wishsong’s magic to weave its spell, and the giant cat sat back on its haunches, luminous eyes on the Valegirl. Blinking in sleepy cadence to the song, he lay docilely at her feet.
Brin went still. For an instant, no one spoke.
“Devils!” the old man shrilled finally, a shrewd look on his weathered face.
The girl came forward wordlessly and stood directly in front of Brin. There was no fear in her eyes, merely curiosity. “How did you do that?” she asked, sounding puzzled. “I didn’t think anyone could do that.”
“It’s a gift,” Brin answered.
The girl hesitated. “You’re not a devil, are you? You’re not one of the walkers or their spirit kin?”
Brin smiled. “No, nothing like that. I just have this gift.”
The girl shook her head in disbelief. “I did not think anyone could do that to Whisper,” she repeated.
“They’re devils!” the old man insisted and stamped his sandaled foot.
Whisper, meanwhile, had come back to his feet and moved over to Rone. The highlander started in surprise, then shot Brin an imploring look as the beast pushed his black muzzle against him. For a moment longer Whisper sniffed the highlander’s clothing in curious fashion. Then abruptly the great jaws opened and fastened loosely about his right boot and began to tug. What remained of Rone’s composure began to slip rapidly away, and he tried to pull free.
“I think he wants to play with you,” the girl announced, a faint smile forming on her lips. She directed a knowing look at the old man, who merely grunted his displeasure and moved several paces further away from them all.
“Well...could you...make sure?” Rone gasped in exasperation, struggling valiantly now to keep his feet as the great cat continued to pull and tug vigorously at the worried boot.
“Whisper!” the girl called sharply.
The huge creature released his grip instantly and trotted to her side. She reached out from beneath the short cloak and rubbed the shaggy head roughly, her long dark hair falling down about her face as she leaned forward to place her head close to his. She spoke softly to him for a moment, then glanced back at Brin and Rone.
“You seem to have a way with animals. Whisper is quite taken with you.”
Brin cast a quick glance at Rone, who was struggling to pull his boot back in place on his foot. “I think Rone would be just as happy if Whisper didn’t take to him quite so much,” she observed.
The girl smiled broadly then, a hint of mischievousness flashing briefly in her dark eyes. “I like you, Brin Ohmsford. You are welcome here-both you and Rone Leah.” She extended a slim brown hand in greeting. “I am Kimber Boh.”
Brin accepted the hand, feeling in its grip a mixture of strength and softness that surprised her. She was surprised, too, when she caught sight of a brace of wicked-looking long knives strapped to the girl’s slim waist beneath the shore cloak.
“Well, they’re not welcome as far as I’m concerned!” the old man snapped from behind the girl, making a gesture of brushing them all aside with a broad sweep of one sticklike arm.
“Grandfather!” Kimber Boh admonished. She gave him a sharp look of disapproval and then turned back to Brin. “You mustn’t mind him. He is very protective of me. I am all the family he has, so he sometimes feels...”
“Don’t be so quick to tell them everything about us!” the old man interrupted, shaking his wispish head in dismay. “What do we know of them? How can we be sure what really brought them here? That girl has a devil’s voice if she can back off Whisper like she did! No, you are much too trusting, girl!”
“And you are much too quick to distrust,” Kimber Boh replied evenly. Her pixie face tightened with resolve. “Now tell them who you are.”’
The old man’s mouth screwed into a vise. “I’ll tell them nothing!”
“Tell them, grandfather.”
The sandaled foot stamped petulantly. “Tell them yourself. You think you know so much more than me!”
Rone Leah had come forward to stand next to Brin, and the two glanced at each other awkwardly. Whisper looked up ac the highlander, yawned and dropped his massive head back onto his paws. A deep, purring sound rose out of his throat as his blue eyes slipped shut.
Kimber Boh turned to face the Valegirl and the highlander. “My grandfather forgets sometimes that the games he is so fond of playing are not real. One of the games he plays often involves changing who he is. He does this by deciding to bury the old self and start life over. He last did this about a year ago.” She gave the old man a knowing look. “But he is who he always was. He is, in fact, the man you have come to find.”
“Then he really is Cogline.” Brin made it a statement of fact.
“I am not Cogline!” the old man insisted heatedly. “He’s dead and buried, just like I told you! Don’t be listening to what she has to say!”
“Grandfather!” Kimber Boh admonished once more. “You are who you are, and you cannot be otherwise. Pretending is for children. You were born Cogline and that is who you will always be. Now please try to e a good host to your guests. Try to be their friend.”
“Ha! I didn’t invite them here, so I don’t have to be a good host!” Cogline snapped obstinately, determined to have nothing whatsoever, to do with either the Valegirl or the highlander. “As for being their friend, you be their friend if you want-that’s up to you!”
Brin and Rone looked at each other doubtfully. It did not appear that they were going to have much luck obtaining help from the old man in finding their way through Darklin Reach.
“Very well, grandfather-I shall be host and friend for the both of us.” Kimber Boh sighed. She faced them squarely, ignoring the old man.. “It’s growing late. You have come a long way and you need food and rest. Home is just a short distance from here, and you are welcome to stay the night as my guests-and my grandfather’s.”
She paused to consider something more. “In fact, it would be a great favor to me if you would stay. Few travelers come this far east, and even then I seldom have a chance to talk with them. As I said, grandfather is very protective. But perhaps you would consent to talk with me-to tell me something of your home in the Southland. Would you do that?”
Brin smiled wearily. “For a place to sleep and something to eat, I think that is the least we could do.”
Rone nodded in agreement, although not without an apprehensive glance at Whisper.
“It is settled then,” Kimber Boh announced. She called to the big cat, who rose, stretched leisurely and padded up to her. “If you will follow me, we can be there in a few minutes’ time.”
She turned, with Whisper beside her, and disappeared back into the forest. The Valegirl and the highlander hitched up their backpacks and followed. As they passed Cogline, the old man refused to look at them, staring at the ground in grim determination, his heavy brows furrowed.
“Dratted trespassers!” he muttered.
Then with a wary glance about, he shuffled after them into
A moment later, the little clearing stood empty.