Jarka Ruus

THIRTY

When Grianne Ohmsford reached the rim of the Forbidding's version of the Valley of Shale, Weka Dart was gone. Fled out of fear, she decided, too terrified to remain once the Warlock Lord appeared. Even so, she took a moment to look for him, thinking he might be hiding in the rocks, his sharp–featured face buried in his hands. But there was no sign of him.

He would be back, she told herself. No matter what happened, he would be back.

She wondered at her certainty about this, and decided rather reluctantly that it was fostered in part, at least, by the comfort she found in his presence. In a better world, such as the one from which she had come, she might not have tolerated him at all. Here, she had to take what friendship she could find.

She started back down the mountainside. Silence enveloped her, a hush that felt strange in the wake of the disappearance of the shades that had tormented her on the way in. They had all vanished, drawn back down into the netherworld with the Warlock Lord. Yet the memory of them haunted her, voices whispering at the back of her thoughts, damp fingers trailing lightly across her unprotected skin, an insidious presence.

The sun was rising, turning the eastern horizon the color of ashes, gray and damp against the departing night. Another day of low clouds and threatening skies. Another day of colorless gloom. She felt her already battered spirits sink at the prospect. She wanted out of this miserable place, out of this world of savagery and despair. She pondered on the words of Brona's shade. A boy is coming. The pronouncement confounded her, no matter how often she repeated the words in her mind. What boy? Why a boy in the first place? It made no sense to her, and she kept thinking that it must be a puzzle of some sort, the secret to which she must find a way to unlock. Shades were famous for speaking in riddles, for teasing with half–truths.

Perhaps that was what had happened here.

She stopped for a moment and closed her eyes, feeling dizzy and weak. Her encounter with the Warlock Lord's shade had left her battered of mind and body, light–headed and unsteady. She could feel an aching not only in her muscles and joints, but also in her heart. Just standing in the presence of the shade had left her sickened. Its poison had permeated the air she breathed and the ground she walked. It had infused the entire valley, though she had not been aware of it until now.

Evil—in its rawest, most lethal form—had infected her. Though she had resisted the Warlock Lord's offer to embrace it, it had claimed her anyway. She wouldn't die from it, she thought, but she would be a long time ridding herself of its feel.

The dizziness passed, and she walked on. A boy, she kept thinking. And she must wait for him. She could do nothing from this end, nothing that would set her free. She did not believe it; there was always something you could do to help yourself in any situation. There was always more than one way in or out of any place, even this one. She need only find what it was. But even as she told herself it was so, she found reason to doubt the words. No one—until now—had ever found a way out of the Forbidding, not after thousands of years. No one had ever found a way in, once the wall of magic was set in place. It was a prison that did not allow for escape.

It was light by the time she reached the base of the mountains: the same sooty gray light that seemed to mark every day, the clouds slung low against the earth, fused with mist and darkened by the threat of rain. Weka Dart was sitting on a rock at the trailhead, chin in his hands, looking south across the flats, but he leapt to his feet on hearing her approach and was waiting eagerly as she came up to him.

«I thought you weren't coming back, Straken," he announced, not bothering to hide the relief in his voice. «That shade, so terrible, so threatening! It didn't want you?»

She shook her head. «Nor you, so you needn't have run away.»

He bristled with indignation. «I didn't run! I chose to wait for you here!» His cunning features tightened as he prepared to lie. «I realized that you could not afford to be disturbed during your summoning and decided to come back down here to keep watch against … whatever might intrude.» He spit. «It worked, didn't it? Were you bothered in any way? Hah! I thought as much!»

She almost laughed. The truth wasn't in the little Ulk Bog, but she didn't find herself angry or even disappointed. It was simply his nature, and there was no point in hoping for anything else. Candor was not a quality she was likely to see much of in Weka Dart.

«If I had thought you needed protection from that shade, if I had not believed you to be a Straken of great power and experience, I would have stayed to see that you were kept safe!» he continued hurriedly, clearly not knowing when to stop.

«But since there was no reason for worry, I came down here, where I knew I could be of more use to you. Tell me. What shade was it you spoke with?»

She sighed. «A warlock of immense power.»

«But its power was no greater than yours or you would not have dared summon it. What did it tell you?»

She sat down next to him. «It told me I must go back to where you found me.»

Instantly, his demeanor changed. «No, no!» he insisted at once. «You mustn't go back there!»

She stared at him in surprise. His distress was reflected on his rough features, revealed by the way the furrows on his brow deepened and knotted and his mouth tightened.

He seemed to realize he had overreacted. «What I mean to say is that you've already barely escaped a Dracha. What reason would you have to risk another encounter? I thought we had decided we would go to … I thought …»

He trailed off. «What did we decide, exactly? Why did we come here? You never said.»

She nodded, amused by his confusion as much as troubled by his distress. «We came here so that I could speak with a shade, Weka Dart. I was not given a choice as to which one.»

The Ulk Bog nodded eagerly. «But you did speak with one. What did you ask it? Why did it tell you to go back to where you had come from? What was its reason for doing so? It must be trying to trick you, perhaps to see you hurt!»

She considered her answer carefully. «I don't think it wants me hurt. Not in the way you suggest. What I asked was how to find my way home again.»

Weka Dart bounded up from the rock to face her. «But you won't find your home from there! You were lost already when I found you! Anyway, that place is too dangerous! There are dragons everywhere, some worse than that Dracha you encountered!»

He was practically jumping up and down now, his hands balled into fists. «Why do you have to go back there to find your way home? Can't you find it somewhere else?»

She shook her head, watching him carefully. «No, I can't. Why are you so upset? Are you frightened for yourself? If so, don't come with me. I can find my own way. Go west, where you were headed when you met me.»

«I don't want to go west!» He practically screamed the words at her. «I want to stay with you!»

«Well, if you want to stay with me, you have to go back to where you found me. What's wrong with you? Are you afraid I can't protect you from those hunting you? Is that what this is about?»

He flew at her in a rage, catching himself just before he got within reach, wheeling away again, then stamping the earth with both feet until she thought he was in danger of breaking his legs. «Aren't you listening to me?» he screamed at her.

«Don't you believe me? You can't go back there!»

She came to her feet, ready for another attack. «Are you coming with me or not? Make up your mind.»

He hissed at her like a snake, his face twisted into a grotesque mask, and his fingers extended like claws. She was so astounded by the transformation that for a moment she thought she had better summon the magic and immobilize him before he lost all control. But then he seemed to get hold of himself, going suddenly still so that he was frozen in his bizarrely aggressive pose. He took a deep breath, blew it out, wrenched his fiery gaze away from her and directed it out onto the flats.

«Do what you want, Grianne of the foolish heart," he said quietly. «Go to whatever doom awaits you, whatever fate. But I will not be caught up in the net, as well. No, I will not come with you.»

Without another word, he stalked away, moving off at a rapid pace, no longer darting from side to side as he had done all the way there, but proceeding straight ahead, south into the Pashanon. She watched him incredulously, not quite believing he was giving up so easily, certain he would turn around and come back after he had gotten far enough away to make his point.

But he did not turn around or come back. He kept walking, and she kept watching him until he was out of sight.

* * *

She found a stream from which to drink, then began retracing her steps west. She was near exhaustion from her encounter with the shade of Brona, but she didn't think she should try to sleep until she reached less open country. She was hungry, as well, but as usual there was no food to be found. She thought she might find some ground roots when she reached the forests again, but there was no way to be certain. Grudgingly, she admitted that having Weka Dart along would have solved the problem, but the Ulk Bog just wasn't worth the trouble. It wasn't entirely his fault, of course. He couldn't understand what she was trying to do, and that frustrated him. It was better that he was gone, even if she was hungry.

Nevertheless, she couldn't help wondering at his extreme reluctance to return to where he had found her. He was adamant about avoiding that place, and she thought there was more to it than his fear of encountering the tribal members he had fled. Something else was going on, something he was keeping to himself. Had she wanted to, she could have used her magic to force it out of him, but she no longer did things like that just to satisfy her curiosity. That approach to problem solving belonged to the Ilse Witch, and she was careful to keep it in the past.

Her trek, though across open, mostly unencumbered ground, quickly tired her, and by midday she was having trouble concentrating. The oppressive grayness closed about her in a deep gloom, and tracking the sun through the screen of clouds took more than a little effort. Sometimes, there was no indication of where it was in the sky, and she could only guess at its progress. Sometimes, she felt as if there were no sun at all.

It was wearing on her, this prison to which she had been consigned. It was breaking down her confidence and her determination. The erosion was incremental, but she could feel it happening. Even the prospect of rescue seemed remote and gave her no real encouragement. Too much relied on chance and the efforts of others. She didn't like that. She had never trusted either.

She was approaching the hill country where they had encountered the Furies two days earlier. Now she decided to turn north toward the mountains again. Her memories of the death of that ogre were too fresh to ignore, and she thought that if she stayed close to the base of the cliffs, she might have better luck escaping notice. She didn't know enough about Furies to have a clear idea of how to avoid them, but she knew that staying out in the open was not a good idea. Better to take her chances where there was a chance for finding cover if the need arose.

Her choice yielded unexpected benefits. She found fresh water and an odd tree that bore a round orange and yellow fruit that, while bitter, was edible. She ate the fruit, sitting by the stream in the shadow of the tree and looking out into the blighted landscape. She felt light–headed and heavy–eyed afterwards, a condition she attributed to lack of rest. She would feel better by the next morning. At least, she reminded herself, she was still alive.

Did any of those she had left behind believe her so? Or did they believe her dead and gone?

She took a moment to picture what it must have been like when she disappeared. Tagwen and Kermadec would have been frantic, but there would have been nothing they could do. Nothing anyone could do, the Druids included. Only a handful, at most, knew what had really happened, those few who had orchestrated her imprisonment. But how much did they understand of what they had done? Not as much as they thought, perhaps. The shade of the Warlock Lord had called them pawns. It was the creature from the Forbidding who controlled them all.

A creature of immense power and great cunning, an enemy perhaps even more dangerous than the Morgawr, it had found a way to reach across the barrier of the Forbidding and subvert at least one of her Druids to its cause. It had tricked that Druid into helping it make possible the exchange of an Ard Rhys for a monster. Perhaps she had been party to the effort, as well. It was possible that her journey to the ruins of the Skull Kingdom with Kermadec was prompted by the thing's need to connect with her. It was possible she had been lured there to make that happen. She could remember the malevolent, dark look of it when it had shown itself. She could still feel the evil that permeated from it. It was not difficult to believe that it had gained a hold over her just from that single, brief encounter.

What did it intend to do, there in the Four Lands, outside the Forbidding for the first time in thousands of years? That it had escaped would not be enough. It would want something more.

Before she set out again, she used her magic to probe the surrounding countryside. It was a precaution, nothing more. She hadn't seen anything move all day, not even in the sky. She might have been alone in the world, and the thought was immensely depressing because for all intents and purposes, that was exactly what she was. It didn't make any difference who or what she encountered; the best she could hope for was another Weka Dart. Everything locked within the Forbidding was a potential enemy, and that wasn't going to change.

She walked on through the remainder of the afternoon without incident, and her spirits lifted marginally. Perhaps she would find a way out of this situation in spite of her doubts. Perhaps someone really was coming to rescue her.

Nightfall was approaching when she heard a strange metallic chirp that reminded her of birdsong. She was so surprised by the sound that she stopped where she was and listened until she heard it again, then started to walk in the direction from which it had come, curious. She reached a grove of shaggy, moss–grown trees when she heard it a third time and saw a flash of something bright red within the shadows. She didn't care for the sickly color of the gnarled trunks, almost a fire–scorched black and gray, or for the way in which the moss draped the limbs like a badly torn shroud, but the sound and the flash of red were simply too intriguing to ignore.

She moved into the grove warily, and almost at once she caught sight of the bird, a fiery crimson splash in the gloom. What was it doing here? It was tiny, too small to be obviously dangerous, but she knew better than to take anything for granted. She eased closer, probing with her magic for hidden dangers. The bird sang again, a quick, high note that was so pure and true she almost cried at the sound.

She was right underneath it, peering up into the branches, when the ground beneath her feet was yanked out from under her and a net whipped tightly about her flailing arms and legs and hauled her up into the trees in a collapsed, gasping bundle.

She fought to break free, tearing at the netting, screaming in rage and frustration. But almost instantly fumes flooded her nostrils and mouth, thick, toxic and mind numbing.

Her last thought before she lapsed into unconsciousness was that she had been a fool.

* * *

She woke to a rolling, shaking motion that jerked her back and forth against the chains that secured her arms and legs to wooden walls and iron bars. The chains allowed her to move just enough to turn from side to side, but not completely around. Nor was there enough play in the lengths to allow her to reach her head or body. She rested on a bed of straw inside a wheeled wooden cage being pulled by two huge, broad–back horned animals that looked a little like bulls but were clearly something more. A second cage preceded her own and a third jolted along behind. There might have been more; she couldn't see.

Her joints ached and her head throbbed. When she tried to clear her mouth of its dryness, she found she was securely gagged.

She closed her eyes, gathering her strength, taking a moment to remember how she had come to this. The birdsong. Then the bird itself. A lure, she realized now, clever and seductive. She had let herself be trapped by one of the oldest tricks in the world. Her magic had failed to detect the snare. That was odd, but not impossible. The snare was sophisticated. Whoever had set it had taken great pains to hide it. That suggested that the trapper was expecting its prey to have the use of magic, which in turn suggested the trapper was looking for someone like her.

She opened her eyes and peered around. The landscape was blighted and gray with shadows, and the air smelled of deadwood and old earth. Through the bars, she could see a handful of lupine forms loping silently through the graying daylight, massive four–legged beasts with shaggy ruffs. Tongues lolled and breath steamed, even though the day was warm. When one of them caught her looking, it lunged at her, snapping at the iron bars and snarling furiously when it failed to reach her.

She lay back in the middle of the cage, shaken. She had neither weapons nor magic with which to protect herself or to get free. She must bide her time. She was at the mercy of whoever had seized her until the gag was removed. Then it would be a different story.

A tall, rawboned creature wearing leather half–pants and a tunic appeared suddenly at the side of the cage, peering in at her. Coarse black hair formed a topknot on a nearly pointed head, and a beard fringed a face that was as elongated and sharp–featured as a child's drawing of a Spider Gnome. It chattered at her with high–pitched sounds that reminded her vaguely of Weka Dart. But the language was different. She stared at it mutely, and the creature stared back. Then it was gone.

She glanced around, trying to get her bearings. To her dismay, she saw the Dragon Line fading into the gloom and mist behind her. She was headed south, away from her original destination.

Away from the mysterious boy who was coming to save her.

* * *

Here ends BOOK ONE of HIGH DRUID OF SHANNARA

In BOOK Two, Tanequil, Pen Ohmsford and his companions continue to search for the strange tree that will provide access to the Forbidding and a chance to rescue the increasingly threatened Ard Rhys, while on the Prekkendorran, the war between Free–born and Federation enters a dangerous new phase.