Morgawr

33

A little more than five months later, the man with the luck and those he had sworn to protect were safely home again. Redden Alt Mer stood at the rail of the Jerle Shannara and stared out into the misty twilight of the Dragon’s Teeth, thinking for the first time in weeks of his harrowing escape from the destruction of the Morgawr’s fleet, reminded of it suddenly by a hunting bird winging its way in slow spirals through the mist that drifted down out of the mountains. His thinking lasted only a moment. That he had found a way through the fire and smoke and explosive debris still amazed him and didn’t bear looking at too closely. Life was a gift you accepted without questioning its generosity or reason.

Still, he would not want to risk his luck like that again. When he returned to the coast and March Brume, he would still fly airships, but he would fly them in safer places.

“What do you suppose they are talking about?” Rue asked, leaning close so that her words would not carry.

Some distance off in the gloom, Bek Ohmsford stood with his sister, two solitary figures engaged in a taut, intense discussion. Their argument, pure and simple, transcended the parting that was taking place. Those who watched from the airship, those few who still remained—Ahren Elessedil, Quentin Leah, Spanner Frew, Kelson Riat, and Britt Rill—waited patiently to see how it would end.

“They’re talking about the choice she has made,” he answered quietly. “The choice Bek can’t accept.”

They had flown in from the coast yesterday, the Wing Riders Hunter Predd and Po Kelles leaving them there to return home to the Wing Hove, their mission complete, their pledge to provide scouting and foraging for the expedition fulfilled. How invaluable their help had been. It was hard to watch them make that final departure, hard to know they wouldn’t still be warding the ship. Some things he got so used to he couldn’t imagine life without them. It was like that for Alt Mer with the Wing Riders.

Still, he would see them again. Out along the coast, over the Blue Divide, on calmer days and under better circumstances.

They would have returned Ahren Elessedil and the Blue Elfstones to Arborlon and the Elves, then flown the Elven Prince home to face his brother, but for the insistence of Grianne Ohmsford that they come first to the Dragon’s Teeth, to the Valley of Shale and the Hadeshorn. She would hear no arguments against it. She owed something to Walker, she told them. She must come to where the dead could be summoned and spoken with, to where the shade of the Druid could tell her the rest of what she must know.

When she had told them why, they were stunned into silence. Not even Bek could believe it. Not then and clearly not now.

“She might be mistaken about this,” Rue continued obstinately. “She might be taking on more than was ever intended of her.”

Alt Mer nodded. “She might. But none of us thinks so, not even Bek. She was saved for this, made whole by the Sword of Shannara and her brother’s love.” He grimaced. “I sound almost poetic.”

She smiled. “Almost.”

They watched in silence again. Bek was gesturing furiously, but Grianne was only standing there, weathering the storm of his anger, calm resolution reflected in her stance and lack of movement. She had made up her mind, Alt Mer knew, and she was not someone who could be persuaded to change it easily. It was more than stubbornness, of course. It was her certainty of her destiny, of what was needed of her, of what was expected. It was her understanding of what it would take for her to gain redemption for the damage she had done to so many lives in so many places for all those years that she had been the Ilse Witch.

When this is done, he thought, nothing will be the same again for any of us; our lives will be changed forever. Perhaps the lives of everyone in the Four Lands will be changed, as well. What waited in the days ahead was that compelling—a new order, a fresh beginning, a reaching into the past to find hope for the future. All these would come about because of what happened here, on this night, in the mountains of the Dragon’s Teeth, in the Valley of Shale, at the edge of the Hadeshorn, when Grianne Ohmsford summoned the shade of Walker.

So she had promised them.

He found it hard to argue with someone who believed she was meant to be Walker Boh’s successor and the next Druid to serve the Four Lands.

Bek was having none of it. He had gone through too much in bringing his sister safely home again to let her wander off now, to place herself at risk once more—at greater risk perhaps than ever.

“You assume that you are meant to achieve something that even Walker could not!” he snapped, willing her to flinch in the face of his wrath. “He could not return for this, could not save himself to make the Druid order come alive. Why do you think it will be any different for you? At least he was not universally despised!”

He threw out the last few words in desperation and regretted them as soon as they were spoken. But Grianne did not seem bothered, and she reached out to touch his face gently.

“Don’t be so angry, Bek. Your life does not lie with me in any case. It lies with her.”

She glanced toward the Jerle Shannara and Rue Meridian. Stubbornly denying what he knew was true, Bek refused to look. “My life is not the subject of this discussion,” he insisted. “Yours is the one that’s likely to be thrown away if you go through with this. Why can’t you just come home with me, find a little peace and comfort for a change, not go out and try to do something impossible!”

“I don’t know yet exactly what it is I am expected to do,” she answered calmly. “I only know what was revealed to me through the magic of the Sword of Shannara—that I am to become the next Druid and will atone for my wrongs by accepting that trust. If through my efforts a Druid Council is formed, as Walker intended that it should be, then the Druids will have a strong presence again in the Four Lands. That was why I was saved, Bek. That was what Walker gave his life for, so that I could make possible the goals he had set for himself but knew he would not live to see fulfilled.”

She stepped close to him and placed her slender hands on his shoulders. “I don’t do this out of foolish expectation or selfish need. I do this out of an obligation to make something worthwhile of a wasted life. Look at me, Bek. Look at what I have done. I can’t ignore who I am. I can’t walk away from a chance to redeem myself. Walker was counting on that. He knew me well enough to understand how I would feel, once the truth was revealed to me. He trusted that I would do what was needed to atone for the harm I have visited on others. How wrong it would be for me to betray him now.”

“You wouldn’t betray him by becoming who you should have been in the first place if none of this had happened!”

She smiled sadly. “But it did happen. It did, and we can’t change that. We have to live with it. I have to live with it.”

She put her arms around him and hugged him. He stood rigid in her embrace for a few moments, then little by little, the tension and the anger drained away until at last he hugged her back.

“I love you, Bek,” she said. “My little brother. I love you for what you did for me, for believing in me when no one else would, for seeing who I could be if I was free of the Morgawr and his lies. That won’t change, even if everything else in the world does.”

“I don’t want you to go.” His words were bitter with disappointment. “It isn’t fair.”

She sighed softly, her breath a whisper in his ear. “I was never meant to come home with you, Bek. That isn’t my life; it isn’t the life I was meant to live. I wouldn’t be happy, not after what I have been through. Coran and Liria are your parents, not mine. Their home is yours. Mine lies elsewhere. You have to accept this. If I am to find peace, I have to make amends for the damage I have done and the hurt I have caused. I can do this by following the destiny Walker has set for me. A Druid can make a difference in the lives of so many. Perhaps becoming one will make a difference in mine, as well.”

He hugged her tighter to him. He sensed the inevitability of what she was saying, the certainty that no matter how hard he argued against it, no matter what obstacles he presented, she was not going to change her mind. He hated what that meant, the loss of any real chance at a life as brother and sister, as family. But he understood that he had lost most of that years ago, and he couldn’t have it back the way it was or even the way it would have been. Life didn’t allow for that.

“I just don’t want to lose you again,” he said.

She released him and stepped away, her strange blue eyes almost merry. “You couldn’t do that, little brother. I wouldn’t allow it. Whatever I do, however this business tonight turns out, I won’t ever be far away from you.”

He nodded, feeling suddenly as if he were just a boy again, still small and in his sister’s care. “Go on, then. Do what you need to do.” He gave her a quick smile. “I’m all argued out. All worn out.” He looked off into the sunset, which had become a faint silver glow in the gathering dark, and fought back his tears. “I’m going home, now. I need to go home. I need for this to be over.”

She came close once more, so small and frail it seemed impossible that she could possess the kind of strength a Druid would need. “Then go, Bek. But know that a part of me goes with you. I will not forget you, nor my promise not ever to be too far away.”

She kissed him. “Will you wish me luck?”

“Good luck,” he muttered.

She smiled. “Don’t be sad, Bek. Be happy for me. This is what I want.”

She tightened her dark robes about her and turned away. “Wait!” he said impulsively. He unstrapped the Sword of Shannara from where he wore it across his back and handed it to her. “You’ll know what to do with this better than I will.”

She looked uncertain. “It was given to you. It belongs to you.”

He shook his head. “It belongs to the Druids. Take it back to them.”

She accepted the talisman, cradling it in her arms like a baby at rest. “Good-bye, Bek.”

In moments, she had started her climb into the mountains. He stood watching until he could no longer see her, all the while unable to overcome the feeling that he was losing her again.

Rue Meridian watched him return to the airship across the broken rock of the barren flats on which they had landed, his head lowered into shadow, fists clenched. Clearly, he was not happy about how things had turned out with his sister. Anger and disappointment radiated from him. Rue knew what he had asked of Grianne and knew, as well, that he had been refused. She could have saved him the trouble, but she supposed he had to find it out for himself. Bek was nothing if not a believer in impossibilities.

“He looks like a whipped puppy,” Big Red mused.

She nodded.

“At least we can go home now,” he continued. “We’re finished here.”

She watched Bek approach for a moment longer, then left her brother’s side, climbed down the rope ladder, and walked out onto the flats. She didn’t think Bek even saw her until she moved to block his way and he looked up to find her standing right in his path.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “About your home, the one you were born in. It wasn’t too far from here, was it?”

He stared at her.

“Do you think we could find where it was, if we went looking?”

His puzzlement was clear. “I don’t know.”

“Want to try?”

“It’s only ruins.”

“It’s your past. You need to see it.”

He glanced toward the airship doubtfully.

“No,” she said. “Not them. They don’t have time for such things. It would be just you and me. On foot.” She let him consider for a moment. “Think of it as an adventure, a small one, but one for just the two of us. After we find it, we can keep going, walk south through the Borderlands along the Rainbow Lake down to the Silver River, then home to the Highlands. Big Red can fly Quentin to Leah on the Jerle Shannara, then take Ahren on to Arborlon.”

She stepped closer, put her arms around him and her face next to his. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of airships for a while. I want to walk.”

He looked stunned, as if he had been handed a gift he hadn’t expected and didn’t deserve. “You’re coming with me? To the Highlands?”

She smiled and kissed him softly on the mouth. “Bek,” she whispered, “I was never going anywhere else.”

Grianne Ohmsford spent the larger part of the night climbing into the foothills below the Dragon’s Teeth, seeking to reach the Valley of Shale before dawn. She might have had Alt Mer fly her in on the airship, but she wanted time alone before summoning the shade of Walker. Besides, it was easier to say her good-byes now rather than later, particularly to Bek. She knew it would be hard to tell him she wasn’t going with him, and it had been. His expectations for her had always been his own and never hers, and it was difficult for him to give them up. He would come to understand, but only in time.

She found the darkness familiar and comforting, still an old friend after all these years. Wrapped in its protective concealment, given peace by its unbroken solitude, she could think about what she was doing and where she was going; she could reflect on the events that had led her to this place and time. The destruction of the Morgawr had not given her the satisfaction she had hoped for. She would need more than revenge to heal. Her Druid life might provide her with that healing, though she knew it would not do so in the traditional way. It would not soothe and comfort her. It would not erase the past or allow her to forget she had been the Ilse Witch. She was not even assured of the nurturing rest of a good night’s sleep. Instead, she would be given an opportunity to balance the scales. She would be given a chance at redemption for an otherwise unbearable past. She would be given a reason for living out the rest of her life.

She did not know if that would be enough to salvage her damaged psyche, her wounded soul, but it was worth a try.

By midnight, she was approaching her destination. She had never been here before and did not know the way, but her instincts told her where she needed to go. Or perhaps it was Walker who guided her, reaching out from the dead. Either way, she proceeded without slowing, and found in the simple act of moving forward a kind of peace. She should have been frightened of what waited; she knew one day the fear she could not seem to put a name to would catch up to her, would make itself known. But her feelings now were all of resolution and commitment, of finding a new place in the world and making a new beginning.

When she reached the rim of the Valley of Shale, coming upon it quite suddenly through a cluster of massive boulders, she stopped and gazed down into its bowl. The valley was littered with chips of glistening black rock, their shiny surfaces reflecting the moonlight like animal eyes. At the valley’s center, the Hadeshorn was a smooth, flat mirror, its waters undisturbed. It was an unsettling place, all silence and empty space, nothing living, nothing but herself. She thought it a perfect place for a meeting with a shade.

She sat down to wait.

Everyone despises you, Bek had told her. The words had been spoken with the intent of changing her mind, but also to hurt her. They had not succeeded in the former, but had in the latter. Did still.

With dawn an hour away, she went down into the valley and stood at the edge of the lake. From what she had been shown by the magic of the Sword of Shannara, she understood what had happened to Walker in this place and would happen now to her. There was a power in the presence of the dead that was disconcerting even to her. Shades were beyond the living and yet still held sway over them because of what they knew.

The future. Its possibilities. Her fate, with all of its complex permutations.

Walker would see what she could not. He would know the choices that awaited her, but would not be able to tell her of their meaning. Knowledge of the future was forbidden to the living because the living must always determine what that future would be. The best the dead could do was to share glimpses of its possibilities and let the living make of them what they would.

She stared off into the distance, thinking that she didn’t care to know the future in any case. She was here to discover if what the magic had shown her was real—if she was meant to be a Druid, to be Walker’s successor, to carry on his work. She had told Bek and the others that she was, but she could not be sure until she heard it from the Druid’s shade. She wanted it to be so; she wanted to be given a chance at doing something that would matter in a good way, that would help secure the work Walker had begun. She wanted to give him back something for the pain she had caused him. Mostly, she wanted to think that she was useful again, that she could find purpose in life, that things did not begin and end with her time as the Ilse Witch.

She glanced down at the waters of the Hadeshorn. Poison, the magic of the Sword of Shannara had whispered. But she was poison, too. She bent impulsively to dip her hand into the dark mirror of moonlight and stars but snatched it back as the waters began to stir. At the center of the lake, steam hissed like dragon’s breath. It was time. Walker was coming.

She straightened within the dark folds of her cloak and waited for him.

“I did not think to see you again, little brother,” Kylen Elessedil declared, sweeping into the room with his customary brusqueness, not bothering with formalities or greetings, not wasting unnecessary time.

“Your surprise is no greater than my own,” Ahren allowed. “But here I am anyway.”

It had been two days since he had said good-bye to Quentin Leah in the Highlands and three since Grianne Ohmsford had walked into the Dragon’s Teeth. Afterwards, Ahren had flown west with the Rovers aboard the Jerle Shannara to Arborlon, thinking the whole time of what he would say when this moment came. He knew what was expected of him—not only by those with whom he had traveled, but also by himself. His was arguably the most important task of all, certainly the most tricky, given the way his brother felt about him. The boy he had been when he had left to follow the tracings of Kael Elessedil’s map would not have been able to handle it. It remained to be seen if the man he had become could.

That he had been met by Elven Home Guard and brought to this small room at the back of the palace, quietly and without fanfare, testified to the fact that his brother still regarded him mostly as a nuisance. Kylen would tolerate his return just long enough to determine if anything more was necessary. The reappearance of Ahren was no cause for celebration absent a recovery of the Elfstones.

“Where is the Druid?” his brother asked, getting right to the point. He walked to the curtained windows at the back of the room and looked out through the folds. “Still aboard ship?”

“Gone back into the Dragon’s Teeth,” Ahren answered. It was not a lie exactly, just a shading of the truth. Kylen didn’t need to know everything just yet. In particular, he didn’t need to know how things stood with the Druids.

“Were you successful in your efforts on this expedition, brother?”

“Mostly, yes.”

Kylen arched an eyebrow. “I am told you return with less than a quarter of those who went.”

“More than that. Some have gone on to their homes. There was no need for them to come here. But, yes, many were lost, Ard Patrinell and his Elven Hunters among them.”

“So that of all the Elves who went, you alone survived?”

Ahren nodded. He could hear the accusation in the other’s words, but he refused to dignify it with a response. He did not need to justify himself to anyone now, least of all to his brother, whose only disappointment was that even a single Elf had survived.

Kylen Elessedil moved away from the window and came over to stand in front of him. “Tell me, then. Did you find the Elfstones? Do you have them with you?”

He could not quite hide the eagerness in his voice or the flush that colored his fair skin. Kylen saw himself empowered by the Elfstones. He did not understand their demands. He might not even realize that they were useless in most of the situations in which he would think to use them. It was the lure of their power that drew him, and the thought of it obscured his thinking.

Still, it was not Ahren’s problem. “I have them. I will give them to you as soon as I am certain we are clear on the terms of the agreement Father and Walker reached.”

Anger flooded his brother’s face. “It is not your place to remind me of my obligations! I know what my father promised! If the Druid has fulfilled his part of the bargain—if you have the Elfstones and a share of the Elven magic to give to me—then it shall be done as Father wished!”

His brother made no attempt to hide the fact that he thought everything was intended just for him rather than for the Elven people. Kylen was a brave man and a strong fighter, but too ambitious for his own good and not much of a politician. He would be causing problems with the Elven High Council by now. He would have already angered certain segments of his people.

“The Elfstones will be yours by the time I leave,” Ahren said. “The magic Walker sought to find requires translation and interpretation in order to comprehend its origins and worth. Those Elves who go to become Druids in the forming of the new council can help with that work. Two dozen would be an adequate number to start.”

“A dozen will do,” his brother said. “You may choose them yourself.”

Ahren shook his head. “Two dozen are necessary.”

“You test my patience, Ahren.” Kylen glared at him, then nodded. “Very well, they are yours.”

“A full share of the money promised to each of the men and women who went on this expedition must be paid out to the survivors or to the families of the dead.”

His brother nodded grudgingly. He was looking at Ahren with something that approached respect, clearly impressed, if not pleased, by his younger brother’s poise and determination. “Anything else? You’ll want to keep the airship, I expect.”

Ahren didn’t bother answering. Instead, he reached into his pocket, withdrew the pouch containing the Elfstones, and handed it to his brother. Kylen took only a moment to release the drawstrings and dump the Stones into his hand. He stared down wordlessly into their depthless blue facets, an unmistakable hunger in his eyes.

“Do you need me to tell you how to make the magic work?” Ahren asked cautiously.

His brother looked over at him. “I know more about them than you think, little brother. I made a point of finding out.”

Ahren nodded, not quite understanding, not sure if he wanted to. “I’ll be going, then,” he said. “After I gather supplies and talk with those I think might come to Paranor.” He waited for Kylen to respond, and when he didn’t, said, “Good-bye, Kylen.”

Kylen was already moving toward the door, the Elfstones clutched in his hand. He stopped as he opened it, and looked back. “Take whatever you need, little brother. Go wherever you want. But, Ahren?” A broad smile wreathed his handsome face. “Don’t ever come back.”

He went out through the door and closed it softly behind him.

It was dawn off the coast of the Blue Divide, and Hunter Predd was flying on patrol aboard Obsidian. He had slept almost continuously for several days after his return, but because he was restless by nature, he required no more time than that to recover from the hardships of his journey and so was back in the air. He never felt at home anywhere else, even in the Wing Hove; he was always anxious to be airborne, always impatient to be flying.

The day was bright and clear, and he breathed deeply of the sea air, the taste and smell familiar and welcome. The voyage of the Jerle Shannara seemed a long time ago, and his memories of its places and people were beginning to fade. Hunter Predd did not like living in the past, and thus discarded it pretty much out of hand. It was the present that mattered, the here and now of his life as a Wing Rider, of his time in the air. He supposed that was in the nature of his occupation. If you let your mind wander, you couldn’t do what was needed.

He searched the skyline briefly for airships, thinking to spot one somewhere in the distance along the coast, perhaps even one captained by Redden Alt Mer. He thought that of all those he had sailed with, the Rover was the most remarkable. Lacking magic or knowledge or even special skills, he was the most resilient, the one nothing seemed to touch. The man with the luck. Hunter Predd could still see him flying, miraculously unscathed, out of the smoky wreckage of the Morgawr’s fleet aboard his single wing. He thought that when nothing else could save you in this world, luck would always do.

Seagulls flew across his path, white-winged darts against the blue of the water. Obsidian gave a warning cry, then wheeled left. He had seen something floating in the water, something his rider had missed. Hunter Predd’s attention snapped back to the job at hand. He saw it now, bobbing in the surf, a splash of bright color.

Perhaps it was a piece of clothing.

Perhaps it was a body.

He felt a catch in his throat, remembering a time that suddenly did not seem so long ago after all.

Using his hands and knees to guide the Roc, he flew down for a closer look.