Morgawr

14

Bek Ohmsford, Truls Rohk, and the catatonic Grianne escaped the ruins of Castledown just ahead of the searching Mwellrets and their caulls and fled into the surrounding forest. Their pursuers were so close that they could hear them moving through the trees, fanning out like beaters intent on flushing their prey. Their closeness infused Bek with a sense of helplessness that even the reassuring presence of the shape-shifter could not dispel entirely. He had a vision of what it must be like to be an animal tracked by humans and their dogs for sport, though there was nothing of sport in this. Only the movement generated by their flight kept his panic at bay.

They would not have escaped at all if Truls hadn’t taken on the responsibility of carrying Grianne. Lacking any will of her own, she could not have moved at any sort of pace that would have allowed them to stay ahead of their enemies, and it was only the shape-shifter’s unexpected decision to carry her that gave them any chance. Even so, with Truls bearing the burden of his sister and Bek running free on his own, they were harassed on all sides for the first two hours of their flight.

What gave them a fighting chance in the end was the coming of the same storm that had brought down the Jerle Shannara. It swept in off the coast in a black wall, and when it struck, pursued and pursuers alike were deep in the forest flanking the Aleuthra Ark and there was no hiding from it. It blanketed them in a torrent of rain and wave after wave of rolling thunder. Bolts of lightning struck the trees all around them in blinding explosions of sparks and fire. Bek shouted to Truls that they must take cover, but the shape-shifter ignored him and continued on, not even bothering to glance back. Bek followed mostly because he had no other choice. Darting and dodging through the blasted landscape with the fury of the storm sweeping over them like a tidal wave, they ran on.

When they finally stopped, the storm having passed, they were soaked through and chilled to the bone. The temperature had dropped considerably, and the green of the forest had taken on a wintry cast. The skies were still clouded and dark, but beginning to clear where night had faded completely and the silvery dawn of the new day had become visible. The sun was still hidden behind the wall of the storm, but soon it would climb high enough in the sky to brighten the land.

Bek was taking deep, ragged breaths as he faced Truls. “We can’t keep up this pace. I can’t, anyway.”

“Going soft, boy?” The other’s laugh was a derisive bark. “Try carrying your sister and see how you do.”

“Do you think we’ve lost them?” he asked, having figured out by now why they had kept going.

“For the moment. But they’ll find the trail again soon enough.” The shape-shifter put Grianne down on a log, where she sat with limp disinterest, eyes unfocused, face slack. “We’ve bought ourselves a little time, at least.”

Bek stared at Grianne a moment, searching for some sign of recognition and not finding it. He felt the weight of her inability to function normally, to respond to anything, pressing down on him. They could not afford to have her remain like this if they were to have any chance of escape.

“What are we going to do?” he asked.

“Run and keep running.” Bek could feel Truls Rohk staring at him from out of the black oval of his cowl. “What would you have us do?”

Bek shook his head and said nothing. He felt disconnected from the world. He felt abandoned, an orphan left to fend for himself with no chance of being able to do so. With Walker gone and the company of the Jerle Shannara dead or scattered, there was no purpose to his life beyond trying to save his sister. If he let himself think about it, which he refused to do, he might come to the conclusion that he would never see home again.

“Time to go,” Truls Rohk said, rising.

Bek stood up, as well. “I’m ready,” he declared, feeling anything but.

The shape-shifter grunted noncommittally, lifted Grianne back into the cradle of his powerful arms, and set out anew.

They walked for the remainder of the day, traveling mostly over ground where it was wet enough that their tracks filled in and disappeared behind them and their scent quickly washed away. It was the hardest day Bek could remember having ever endured. They stopped only long enough to catch their breath, drink some water, and eat a little of what small supplies Truls carried. They did not slow their pace, which was brutal. But it was the circumstances of their flight that wore Bek down the most—the constant sense of being hunted, of fleeing with no particular destination in mind, of knowing that almost everything familiar and reassuring was gone. Bek got through on the strength of his memories of home and family and life before this voyage, memories of Quentin and his parents, of the world of the Highlands of Leah, of days so far away in space and time they seemed a dream.

By nightfall, they were no longer able to hear their pursuers. The forest was hushed in the wake of the storm’s passing and the setting of the sun, and there was a renewed peace to the land. Bek and Truls sat in silence and ate their dinner of dried salt beef and stale bread and cheese. Grianne would eat nothing, though Bek tried repeatedly to make her do so. There was no help for it. If she did not choose to eat, he couldn’t force her. He did manage to make her swallow a little water, a reflex action on her part as much as a response to his efforts. He was worried that she would lose strength and die if she didn’t ingest something, but he didn’t know what to do about it.

“Let her alone” was the shape-shifter’s response when asked for his opinion. “She’ll eat when she’s ready to.”

Bek let the matter drop. He ate his food, staring off into the darkness, wrapped in his thoughts.

When they were finished, the shape-shifter rose and stretched. “Tuck your sister in for the night and go to sleep. I’ll backtrack a bit and see if the rets and their dogs are any closer.” He paused. “I mean what I say, boy. Go to sleep. Forget about keeping watch or thinking about your sister or any of that. You need to rest if you want to keep up with me.”

“I can keep up,” Bek snapped.

Truls Rohk laughed softly and disappeared into the trees. He melted away so quickly that he might have been a ghost. Bek stared after him for a moment, still angry, then moved over to his sister. He stared into her cold, pale face—the face of the Ilse Witch. She looked so young, her features radiating a child’s innocence. She gave no hint of the monster she concealed beneath.

A sense of hopelessness stole over him. He felt such despair at the thought of what she had done with her life, of the terrible acts she had committed, of the lives she had ruined. She had known what she was doing, however misguided in her understanding of matters. She had embraced her behavior and found a way to justify it. To expect her to shed her past as a snake would its skin seemed ludicrous. Truls was probably right. She would never be the child she had been. She would never even come back to being human.

Impulsively, he touched her cheek, letting his fingers stray down the smooth skin. He couldn’t even remember her as a child. His image of her was formed solely from his imagination. She remembered him, but his own memory was built on a foundation of wishful thinking and imperfect hope. She looked enough like he did that no small part of his image of her was based on his image of himself. It was a flawed concoction. Thinking of her as he thought of himself was fool’s play.

He reached out and gently drew her against him. She came compliantly, limply, letting him hold her. He imagined what she must feel, trapped inside her mind, unable to break free. Or did she feel anything? Was she conscious at all of what was happening? He pressed his cheek against hers, feeling the warmth of her, sharing in it. He couldn’t understand why she invoked such strong feelings in him. He barely knew her. She was a stranger and, until lately, an enemy. Yet what he felt was real and true, and he was compelled to acknowledge it. He would not abandon her, not even if it cost him his own life. He could not. He knew that as surely as he knew that nothing about his life would ever be the same again.

Some part of his sense of responsibility for her, he admitted, was the result of his need to feel useful. His life was spinning out of control. With her, if with no one else, himself included, he was in a position of power. He was her caretaker and protector. She had enemies all about. She was more alone than he was. Accepting responsibility for her gave him a focus that would otherwise be reduced to little more than self-preservation.

He laid her down on a dry patch of ground beneath the sheltering canopy of a tree that the rains hadn’t penetrated, and covered her carefully with her cloak. He stared down at her for a long time, at the clear features and closed eyes, at the pulse in her throat, at her chest rising and falling with each breath. His sister.

Then he stood and stared out into the darkness, tired but not sleepy, his mind working through the morass of his troubles, trying to decide what he might do to help himself and Grianne. Surely Truls would do what he could, but Bek knew it was a mistake to rely too heavily on his enigmatic protector. He had done that before, and it hadn’t been enough to keep him safe. In the end, as the shape-shifters in the mountains had warned him he must, he had relied on himself. He had waited for Grianne, confronted her, and changed the course of both their lives.

What he could not tell as yet was whether or not the change had been for the better. He supposed it had. At least Grianne was no longer the Ilse Witch, his enemy and antagonist. At least they were together and clear of the ruins and Black Moclips and the Mwellrets. At least they were free.

He sat down, closed his eyes to rest them, and in moments was asleep. His sleep was deep and untroubled, made smooth by his exhaustion and his willingness to let go of his waking life for just a little while. In the cool, silent blanket of the dark, he was able to make himself believe that he was safe.

He did not know how long he slept before he woke again, but he was certain of the cause of his waking. It was a voice summoning him from his dreams.

–Bek–

The voice was clear and certain, reaching out to him. His eyes opened.

–Bek–

It was Walker. Bek rose and stood staring about the empty clearing, the sky overhead clear and bright, filled with thousands of stars, their light a silvery wash over the forest dark. He looked around. His sister slept. Truls Rohk had not returned. He stood alone in a place where ghosts could speak and the truth be revealed.

–Bek–

The voice called to him not from the clearing, but from somewhere close by, and he followed the sound of it, moving into the trees. He did not fear for his sister, although he could not explain why. Perhaps it was the certainty that Walker would not summon him if it would put her in peril. Just the sound of the Druid’s voice brought a sense of peace to Bek that defied explanation. A dead man’s voice giving peace—how odd.

He walked only a short distance and found himself in a clearing with a deep, black pond at its center, weeds clustered along the edges and pads of night-blooming water lilies floating their lavender flags through the dark. The smells of the water and the forest mixed in a heady brew suffused with both damp and dry earth, slow decay and burgeoning life. Fireflies blinked on and off all across the pond like tiny beacons.

The Druid was at the far side of the pond, neither in the water nor on the shore, but suspended in the night air, a transparent shade defined by lines and shadows. His face was hidden in his cowl, but Bek knew him anyway. No one else had exactly that stance and build; Walker in death, even as in life, was distinctive.

The Druid spoke to him as if out of a deep, empty well.

–Bek. I am given only a short time to walk free upon this earth before the Hadeshorn claims me. Time slips away. Listen carefully. I will not come to you again–

The voice was smooth and compelling as it rose from its cavernous lair. It had the feel and resonance of an echo, but with a darker tone. Bek nodded that he understood, then added, “I’m listening.”

–Your sister is my hope, Bek. She is my trust. I have given that trust to you, the living, since I am gone. She must be kept safe and well. She must be allowed to become whole–

Bek wanted to say that he was not the one to bear the weight of this responsibility, that he lacked the necessary experience and strength. He wanted to say that it was Truls who would make the difference; Bek was acting only as the shape-shifter’s conscience in this matter so that Grianne would not be abandoned. But he said nothing, choosing instead to listen.

But Walker seemed to divine his reluctance.

–Physical strength is not what your sister needs, Bek. She needs strength of mind and heart. She needs your determination and commitment to see her safely back from where she hides–

“Hides?” he blurted out.

–Deep inside a wall of denial, of darkness of mind, of silence of thought. She seeks a way to accept what she has done. Acceptance comes with forgiveness. Forgiveness begins when she can confront the darkest of her deeds, the one she views as most unforgivable, the one that haunts her endlessly. When she can face that darkest of acts and forgive herself, she will come back to you–

Bek shook his head, thinking through what little he knew of the specifics of her life. How could one deed be darker than any other? What one deed would that be?

“This one deed . . . ,” he began.

–Is known only to her, because it is the one she has fixed upon. She alone knows what it is–

Bek considered. “But how long will it take for such a thing to happen? How will it even come about?”

–Time–

Time we don’t have, Bek thought. Time that slips away like night toward day, a certainty of loss that cannot be reversed.

“There must be something we can do to help!” he exclaimed.

–Nothing–

Despair settled through him, pulling down hopes and stealing away possibilities. All he could do, all anyone could do, was to keep Grianne out of the hands of the Morgawr and his Mwellrets. Keep running. Wait patiently. Hope she found a way clear of her prison. It wasn’t much. It was nothing.

“Truls wants to leave her,” he said quietly, searching for something more upon which to rely. “What if he does?”

–His destiny is not yours. Even if he goes, you must stay–

Bek exhaled sharply.

–Remember your promise–

“I would never forget it. She is my sister.” He paused, rubbing at his eyes. “I don’t understand something. Why is she so important to you, Walker? She was your enemy. Why are you trying so hard to save her now? Why do you say she is your hope and trust?”

Shards of moonlight knifed through the transparent form, causing it to shift and change. Below, the waters of the pond rippled gently.

–When she wakes, she will know–

“But what if she doesn’t wake?” Bek demanded. “What if she doesn’t come back from where she has hidden inside?”

–She will know–

He began receding into the dark.

“Walker, wait!” Bek was suddenly desperate. “I can’t do this! I don’t have the skills or experience or anything! How can I reach her? She won’t even listen to me when she’s awake! She won’t tell me anything!”

–She will know–

“How can she know anything if I can’t explain it to her?” Bek charged ahead a few steps, stopping at the edge of the pond. The Druid was fading away. “Someone has to tell her, Walker!”

But the shade disappeared, and Bek was left alone with his confusion. He stood without moving for a long time, staring at the space Walker had occupied, repeating his words over and over, trying to understand them.

She will know.

Grianne Ohmsford, his sister, the Ilse Witch, mortal enemy of the Druids and of Walker, in particular.

She will know.

There was no sense to it.

Yet in his heart, where such things reveal themselves like rainbows after thunderstorms, he knew it to be true.