The Druid of Shannara

Chapter Sixteen

It was all that’Morgan Leah could do to keep himself and Quickening afloat in the churning river, and while he might have considered trying to swim for shore if he had been unencumbered he gave no thought of doing so here. Quickening was awake and able to lend some assistance to his effort, but it was mostly Morgan’s strength that kept them away from the rocks and out of the deep eddies that might have pulled them down. As it was, the river took them pretty much where it chose. It was swollen by the rains and overflowing its banks, and its surface waters were white with foam and spray against the darkness of the skies and land. The storm continued to rage, thunder rumbling down the canyon depths, lightning flashing against the distant peaks, and the rains falling in heavy sheets. The cliff face they had tumbled down disappeared from view almost immediately and with it their companions. The Rabb twisted and turned through the mountain rocks, and soon they lost any sense of where they were.

After a time a tree that had been knocked into the river washed by and they caught hold of it and let it carry them along. They were able to rest a bit then, clutching the slippery trunk side by side, doing what they could to protect their bodies from the rocks and debris, searching the river and the shoreline for a means to extract themselves. They did not bother trying to speak; they were too exhausted to expend the effort and the river would likely have drowned out their words in any case. They simply exchanged glances and concentrated on staying together.

Eventually the river broadened, tumbling down out of the peaks into the hill country north, emptying into a forested basin where it pooled before being swept into a second channel that carried it south again. There was an island in the center of the basin, and the tree they were riding ran aground against it, spinning and bumping along its banks. Morgan and Quickening shoved away from their make-do raft and stumbled wearily ashore. Exhausted, their clothing hanging in tatters, they crawled through weeds and grasses for the shelter of the trees that grew there, a cluster of hardwoods dominated by a pair of monstrous old elms. Streams of water eddied and pooled on the ground about them as they fought their way along the island’s rain-soaked banks, and the wind howled around their ears. Lightning struck the mainland shore nearby with a thunderous crack, and they flattened themselves while the thunder rolled past.

At last they gained the trees, grateful to discover that it was comparatively dry beneath the canopy of limbs and sheltered against the wind. They stumbled to the base of the largest of the elms and collapsed, sprawling next to each other on the ground, gasping for breath. They lay without moving for a time, letting their strength return. Then, after exchanging a long look that conveyed their unspoken agreement to do so, they pulled themselves upright against the elm’s rough trunk and sat shoulder to shoulder, staring out into the rain.

“Are you all right?” Morgan asked her.

It was the first thing either of them had said. She nodded wordlessly. Morgan checked himself carefully for injuries, and finding none, sighed and leaned back—relieved, weary, cold, and unexplainably hungry and thirsty, too, despite being drenched. But there was nothing to eat or drink, so there was no point in thinking about it.

He glanced over again. “I don’t suppose you could do anything about a fire, could you?” She shook her head. “Can’t use magic of any kind, huh? Ah, well. Where’s Walker Boh when you need him?” He tried to sound flippant and failed. He sighed.

She reached over and let her hand rest on him, and it warmed him despite his discomfort. He lifted his arm and placed it about her shoulders, easing her close. It brought them both some small measure of warmth. Her silver hair was against his cheek, and her smell was in his nostrils, a mix of earth and forest and something else that was sweet and compelling.

“They won’t find us until this storm ends,” she said.

Morgan nodded. “If then. There won’t be any trail to follow. Just the river.” He frowned. “Where are we, anyway? North or south of where we went into the river?”

“North and east,” she advised.

“You know that?”

She nodded. He could feel her breathing, the slight movement of her body against him. He was shivering, but having her close like this seemed to make up for it. He closed his eyes.

“You didn’t have to come after me,” she said suddenly. She sounded uncomfortable. “I would have been all right.”

He tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn. “I was due for a bath.”

“You could have been hurt, Morgan.”

“Not me. I’ve already survived attacks by Shadowen, Federation soldiers, Creepers, and other things I’d just as soon forget about. A fall into a river isn’t going to hurt me.”

The wind gusted sharply, howling through the branches of the trees, and they glanced skyward to listen. When the sound died away, they could hear the rush of the river again as it pounded against the shoreline.

Morgan hunched down within his sodden clothing. “When this storm blows itself out, we can swim to the mainland, get off this island. The river is too rough to try it now. And we’re too tired to make the attempt in any case. But that’s all right. We’re safe enough right here. Just a little damp.”

He realized that he was talking just to be doing something and went still again. Quickening did not respond. He could almost feel her thinking, but he hadn’t a clue as to what she was thinking about. He closed his eyes again and let his breathing slow. He wondered what had become of the others. Had they managed to make it safely down that trail or had the collapse of the ledge trapped Walker and Pe Ell on the upper slope? He tried to envision the Dark Uncle and the assassin trapped with each other and failed.

It was growing dark now, dusk chasing away what little light remained, and shadows began to spread across the island in widening black stains. The rains were slowing, the sounds of thunder and wind receding in the distance, and the storm was beginning to pass. The air was not cooling as Morgan had expected, but instead was growing warm again, thick with the smells of heat and humidity. Just as well, he thought. They were too cold as it was. He thought about what it would feel like to be warm and dry again, to be secluded in his hunting lodge in the Highlands with hot broth and a fire, seated on the floor with the Ohmsfords, swapping lies of what had never been.

Or seated perhaps with Quickening, saying nothing because speaking wasn’t necessary and just being together was enough, just touching...

The ache of what he was feeling filled him with both longing and fear. He wanted it to continue, wanted it to be there always, and at the same time he did not understand it and was certain that it would betray him.

“Are you awake?” he asked her, anxious suddenly for the sound of her voice.

“Yes,” she replied.

He took a deep breath and breathed out slowly. “I have been thinking about why I’m here,” he said. “Wondering about it since Culhaven. I haven’t any magic anymore—not really. All I ever had was contained in the Sword of Leah, and now it’s broken and what magic remains is small and probably won’t be of much help to you. So there’s just me, and I...” He stopped. “I just don’t know what it is that you expect of me, I guess.”

“Nothing,” she answered softly.

“Nothing?” He could not keep the incredulity from his voice.

“Only what you are able and wish to give,” she answered vaguely.

“But I thought that the King of the Silver River said...” He stopped. “I thought that your father said I was needed. Isn’t that what you said? That he told you we were needed, all of us?”

“He did not say what it was that you were to do, Morgan. He told me to bring you with me in my search for the talisman and that you would know what to do, that we all would.” She lifted away slightly and turned to look at him. “If I could tell you more, I would.”

He scowled at her, frustrated with the evasiveness of her answer, with the uncertainty he was feeling. “Would you?”

She almost smiled. Even rain-streaked and soiled by the river’s waters, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He tried to speak and failed. He simply sat there, mute and staring.

“Morgan,” she said softly. “My father sees things that are hidden from all others. He tells me what I must know of these things, and I trust him enough to believe that what he tells me is enough. You are here because I need you. It has something to do with the magic of your Sword. I was told by my father and told you in turn that you will have a chance to make the Sword whole again. Perhaps then it will serve us both in a way we cannot foresee.”

“And Pe Ell?” he pressed, determined now to know everything.

“Pe Ell?”

“Walker says he is an assassin—that he, too, carries a weapon of magic, a weapon that kills.”

She studied him for a long moment before she said, “That is true.”

“And he is needed, too?”

“Morgan.” His name was spoken as a caution.

“Tell me. Please.”

Her perfect features lowered into shadow and lifted again, filled with sadness. “Pe Ell is needed. His purpose, as yours, must reveal itself.”

Morgan hesitated, trying to decide what to ask next, desperate to learn the truth but unwilling to risk losing her by crossing into territory in which he was not welcome.

His face tightened. “I would not like to think that I had been brought along for the same reason as Pe Ell,” he said finally. “I am not like him.”

“I know that,” she said. She hesitated, wrestling with some inner demon. “I believe that each of you—Walker Boh included—is here for a different reason, to serve a different purpose. That is my sense of things.”

He nodded, anxious to believe her, finding it impossible not to do so. He said, “I just wish I understood more.”

She reached up and touched his cheek with her fingers, letting them slide down his jaw to his neck and lift away again. “It will be all right,” she said.

She lay back again, folding into him, and he felt his frustration and doubt begin to fade. He let them go without a fight, content just to hold the girl. It was dark now, daylight gone into the west, night settled comfortably over the land. The storm had moved east, and the rains had been reduced to mist. The clouds were still thick overhead but empty now of thunder, and a blanket of stillness lay across the land as if to cover a child preparing for sleep. In the invisible distance the Rabb continued to churn, a sullen, now sluggish flow that lulled and soothed with its wash. Morgan peered into the night without seeing, finding its opaque curtain lowered to enclose him, to wrap about him as if an invisible shroud. He breathed the clean air and let his thoughts drift free.

“I could eat something,” he mused after a time. “If there were anything to eat.”

Quickening rose without speaking, took his hands in hers, and pulled him up after her. Together, they walked into the darkness, picking their way through the damp grasses. She was able to see as he could not and led the way with a sureness that defied him. After a time she found roots and berries that they could eat and a plant that when properly cut yielded fresh water. They ate and drank what they found, crouched silently next to each other, saying nothing. When they were finished, she took him out to the riverbank where they sat in silence watching the Rabb flow past in the dim, mysterious half-light, a murky sheen of movement against the darker mainland.

A light breeze blew into Morgan’s face, filled with the rich scent of flowers and grasses. His clothes were still damp, but he was no longer chilled. The air was warm, and he felt strangely light-headed.

“It is like this sometimes in the Highlands,” he told her. “Warm and filled with earth smells after a summer storm, the nights so long you think they might never end and wish they wouldn’t.” He laughed. “I used to sit up with Par and Coll Ohmsford on nights like this. I’d tell them that if a man wished hard enough for it, he could just... melt into the darkness like a snowflake into skin, just disappear into it, and then stay as long as he liked.”

He glanced over to judge her reaction. She was still beside him, lost in thought. He brought his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. A part of him wanted to melt into this night so that it would go on forever, wanted to take her with him, away from the world about them. It was a foolish wish.

“Morgan,” she said finally, turning. “I envy you your past. I have none.”

He smiled. “Of course you...”

“No,” she interrupted him. “I am an elemental. Do you know what that means? I am not human. I was created by magic. I was made from the earth of the Gardens. My father’s hand shaped me. I was born full-grown, a woman without ever having been a child. My purpose in being has been determined by my father, and I have no say in what that purpose is to be. I am not saddened by this because it is all I know. But my instincts, my human feelings, tell me there is more, and I wish that it were mine as it has been yours. I sense the pleasure you take in remembering. I sense the joy.”

Morgan was speechless. He had known she was magic, that she possessed magic, but it had never occurred to him that she might not be... He caught himself. Might not be what? As real as he was? As human? But she was, wasn’t she? Despite what she thought, she was. She felt and looked and talked and acted human. What else was there? Her father had fashioned her in the image of humans. Wasn’t that enough? His eyes swept over her. It was enough for him, he decided. It was more than enough.

He reached out to stroke her hand. “I admit I don’t know anything about how you were made, Quickening. Or even anything about elementals. But you are human. I believe that. I would know if you weren’t. As for not having any past, a past is nothing more than the memories you acquire, and that’s something you’re doing right now, acquiring memories—even if they’re not the most pleasant in the world.”

She smiled at the idea. “The ones of you will always be pleasant, Morgan Leah,” she said.

He held her gaze. Then he leaned forward and kissed her, just a brief touching of their lips, and lifted away. She looked at him through those black, penetrating eyes. There was fear mirrored there, and he saw it.

“What frightens you?” he asked.

She shook her head. “That you make me feel so much.”

He felt himself treading on dangerous ground, but went forward nevertheless. “You asked me before why I came after you when you fell. The truth is, I had to. I am in love with you.”

Her face lost all expression. “You cannot be in love with me,” she whispered.

He smiled bleakly. “I’m afraid I have no choice in the matter. This isn’t something I can help.”

She looked at him for a long time and then shuddered. “Nor can I help what I feel for you. But while you are certain of your feelings, mine simply confuse me. I do not know what to do with them. I have my father’s purpose to fulfill, and my feelings for you and yours for me cannot be allowed to interfere with that.”

“They don’t have to,” he said, taking her hands firmly now. “They can just be there.”

Her silver hair shimmered as she shook her head. “I think not. Not feelings such as these.”

He kissed her again and this time she kissed him back. He breathed her in as if she were a flower. He had never felt so certain about anything in his life as how he felt about her.

She broke the kiss and drew away. “Morgan,” she said, speaking his name as if it were a plea.

They rose and went back through the damp grasses to the sheltering trees, to the elm where they had waited out the storm earlier, and sank down again by its roughened trunk. They held each other as children might when frightened and alone, protecting against nameless terrors that waited just beyond the bounds of their consciousness, that stalked their dreams and threatened their sleep.

“My father told me as I left the Gardens of my birth that there were things he could not protect me against,” she whispered. Her face was close against Morgan’s, soft and smooth, her breath warm. “He was not speaking of the dangers that would threaten me—of Uhl Belk and the things that live in Eldwist or even of the Shadowen. He was speaking of this.”

Morgan stroked her hair gently. “There isn’t much of anything that you can do to protect against your feelings.”

“I can close them away,” she answered.

He nodded. “If you must. But I will tell you first that I am not capable of closing my feelings away. Even if my life depended on it, I could not do so. It doesn’t make any difference who you are or even what you are. Elemental or something else. I don’t care how you were made or why. I love you, Quickening. I think I did from the first moment I saw you, from the first words you spoke. I can’t change that, no matter what else you ask of me. I don’t even want to try.”

She turned in his arms, and her face lifted to find his. Then she kissed him and kept on kissing him until everything around them disappeared.

When they woke the next morning the sun was cresting the horizon of a cloudless blue sky. Birds sang and the air was warm and sweet. They rose and walked to the riverbank and found the Rabb slow-moving and placid once more.

Morgan Leah looked at Quickening, at the curve of her body, the wild flow of her silver hair, the softness of her face, and the smile that came to his face was fierce and unbidden. “I love you,” he whispered.

She smiled back at him. “And I love you, Morgan Leah. I will never love anyone again in my life the way I love you.”

They plunged into the river. Rested now, they swam easily the distance that separated the island from the mainland. On gaining the far shore, they stood together for a moment looking back, and Morgan fought to contain the sadness that welled up within him. The island and their solitude and last night were lost to him except as memories. They were going back into the world of Uhl Belk and the Black Elfstone.

They walked south along the river’s edge for several hours before encountering the others. It was Carisman who spied them first as he wandered the edge of a bluff, and he cried out in delight, summoning the rest. Down the steep slope he raced, blond hair flying, handsome features flushed. He skidded the last several yards on his backside, bounded up, and raced to intercept them. Throwing himself at Quickening’s feet, he burst into song. He sang:

It was a ridiculous song, but it made Morgan smile nevertheless. In moments, the others had joined them as well, gaunt Pe Ell, his dark anger at having lost Quickening giving way to relief that she had been found again; bearish Horner Dees, gruffly trying to put the entire incident behind them; and the enigmatic Walker Boh, his face an inscrutable mask as he complimented Morgan on his rescue. All the while, an exuberant Carisman danced and sang, filling the air with his music.

When the reunion finally concluded the company resumed its journey, moving away from the Charnals and into the forestlands north. Somewhere far ahead, Eldwist waited. The sun climbed into the sky and hung there, brightening and warming the lands beneath as if determined to erase all traces of yesterday’s storm.

Morgan walked next to Quickening, picking his way through the slowly evaporating puddles and streams. They didn’t speak. They didn’t even look at each other. After a time, he felt her hand take his.

At her touch, the memories flooded through him.