The Druid of Shannara

Chapter Twenty-Six

Pe Ell had.changed his mind twice before finally settling the matter. Now he slipped down the darkening street and ducked into the doorway of the building in which the others had concealed themselves with his misgivings comfortably stowed. Rain dripped from his cloak, staining the stone of the stairs he followed, tracking his progress in a steady, meandering trail. He paused at the landing to listen, heard nothing; and went on. The others were probably out searching. There or not, it made no difference to him. Sooner or later, they would return. He could wait.

He passed down the hallway without bothering to conceal his approach and stalked through the doorway of their hiding place. At first glance the room appeared empty, but his instincts warned him instantly that he was being watched and he stopped a dozen feet through. Shadows dappled the room in strange patterns, clustered about haphazardly as if stray children chased aside by the weather. The patter of the rain sounded steadily in the silence as Pe Ell stood waiting.

Then Horner Dees appeared, slipping noiselessly from the shadows of a doorway to one side, moving with a grace and ease that belied his bulky frame. He was scratched and bruised and his clothing was torn. He looked as if some animal had gotten hold of him. He fixed Pe Ell with his grizzled look, as rough and suspicious as ever, an ageing bear come face to face with a familiar enemy.

“You constantly amaze me,” Pe Ell said, meaning it, still curious about this troublesome old man.

Dees stopped, keeping his distance. “Thought we’d seen the last of you,” he growled.

“Did you, now?” Pe Ell smiled disarmingly, then moved across the room to where a collection of withered fruits sat drying in a makeshift bowl. He picked one up and took a bite. It was bitter tasting, but edible. “Where are the others?”

“Out and about,” Dees answered. “What difference does it make to you?”

Pe Ell shed his damp cloak and seated himself. “None. What happened to you?”

“I fell down a hole. Now what do you want?”

Pe Ell’s smile stayed in place. “A little help.”

It was difficult to tell if Horner Dees was surprised or not; he managed to keep his face from showing anything but seemed at a momentary loss for a response. He hunched down a few inches, as if settling himself against an attack, studied Pe Ell wordlessly, then shook his head.

“I know you, Pe Ell,” he declared softly. “I remember you from the old days, from the time you were just beginning. I was with the Federation then, a Tracker, and I knew you. Rimmer Dall had plans for me as well; but I decided not to go along with them. I saw you once or twice, saw you come and go, heard the rumors about you.” He paused. “I just want you to know.”

Pe Ell finished the fruit and tossed the pit aside. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this unexpected revelation. He guessed it really didn’t matter. At least now he had an inkling of what it was that bothered him so about Dees.

“I don’t remember you,” he said finally. “Not that it matters.” The hatchet face inclined away from the light. “Just so we understand each other, Rimmer Dall’s plans for me didn’t work out quite as he expected either. I do what I choose. I always have.”

Dees rugged face nodded. “You kill people.” Pe Ell shrugged. “Sometimes. Are you frightened?” The other man shook his head. “Not of you.” “Good. Then if we’ve finished with that topic of conversation, let’s move back to the other. I need a little help. Care to lend me some?”

Horner Dees stood mute a moment, then moved over to seat himself. He settled down with a grunt and stared at Pe Ell without speaking, apparently assessing the offer. That was fine with Pe Ell. He had thought the matter through carefully before coming back, weighing the pros and cons of abandoning his plan of entering the Rake’s shelter alone, of seeking assistance in determining whether or not the Stone King hid within. He had nothing to hide, no intention to deceive. It was always best to take a straightforward approach when you could.

Dees stirred. “I don’t trust you.”

Pe Ell laughed tonelessly. “I once told the Highlander he was a fool if he did. I don’t care if you trust me; I’m not asking for your trust. I’m asking for your help.”

Dees was intrigued despite himself. “What sort of help?” Pe Ell hid his satisfaction. “Last night I tracked the Rake to its lair. I watched it enter, saw where it hides. I believe it likely that where the Rake hides, the Stone King hides as well. When the Rake goes out tonight to patrol the streets of the city, I intend to go in for a look.”

He shifted forward, bringing Dees into the circle of his confidence. “There is a catch that releases a door through which the Rake passes. If I trip it, I should be able to go in. The trouble is, what if the door closes behind me? How will I get out?”

Dees rubbed his bearded chin, digging at the thick whiskers as though they itched. “So you want someone to watch your back for you.”

“It seems like a good idea. I had planned to go in alone, to confront the Stone King, kill him if need be, and take the Stone. That’s still my plan, but I don’t want to have to worry about the Rake crawling up my back when I’m not watching.”

“So you want me to watch for you.”

“Afraid?”

“You keep asking that. Fact is, I should be asking you. Why should you trust me? I don’t like you, Pe Ell. I’d be just as happy if the Rake would get you. That makes me a poor choice for this job don’t you think?”

Pe Ell unfolded his legs and stretched his lean body back against the wall. “Not necessarily. You don’t have to like me. I don’t have to like you. And I don’t. But we both want the same thing—the Black Elfstone. We want to help the girl. Doesn’t seem likely either of us can do much alone—although I have a better chance than you do. The point is, if you give your word that you will keep watch for me, I think that’s what you’ll do. Because your word means something to you, doesn’t it?”

Dees laughed dryly. “Don’t tell me you’re about to make a plea to my sense of honor. I don’t think I could stomach that.”

Pe Ell quit smiling. “I have my own code of honor, old man, and it means every bit as much to me as yours does to you. If I give my word, I keep it. That’s more than most can say. I’m telling you I’ll watch out for you if you watch out for me—just until this business is finished. After that, we each go back to watching out for ourselves.” He cocked his head. “Time is slipping away. We have to be in place by sunset. Are you coming or not?”

Horner Dees took a long time to answer. Pe Ell would have been surprised and suspicious if he had not. Whatever else Dees was, he was an honest man, and Pe Ell was certain he would not enter into an arrangement he did not think he could abide by. Pe Ell trusted Dees; he wouldn’t have asked the old man to watch his back if he didn’t. Moreover, he thought Dees capable, the best choice of all, in some ways, not inexperienced like the Highlander or flighty like Carisman. Nor was he unpredictable like Walker Boh. Dees was nothing more nor less than what he appeared to be.

“I told the Highlander about you,” Dees announced, watching. “He’s told the others by now.”

Pe Ell shrugged once more. “I don’t care about that.” And he didn’t.

Dees hunched his heavy frame forward, squinting into the faint gray light. “If we get possession of the Stone, either of us, we bring it back to the girl. Your word.”

Pe Ell smiled in spite of himself. “You would accept my word, old man?”

Dees’ features were hard and certain. “If you try to break it, I’ll find a way to make you sorry you did.”

Pe Ell believed him. Horner Dees, for all of being old and used up, for the weathered look of him and the wear of the years, would be a dangerous adversary. A Tracker, a woodsman, and a hunter, Dees had kept himself alive for a long time. He might not be Pe Ell’s equal in a face-to-face confrontation, but there were other ways to kill a man. Pe Ell smiled inwardly. Who should know better than he?

Pe Ell reached out his hand and waited for the old man to take it. “We have a bargain,” he said. Their hands tightened, held momentarily and broke. Pe Ell came to his feet like a cat. “Now let’s be off.”

They went out the door of the room and down the stairs again, Pe Ell leading. The gloom without had thickened, the darkness growing steadily as nightfall approached. They hunched their cloaked shoulders against the rain and started away. Pe Ell’s thoughts drifted to his bargain. It had been an easy one to make. He would return the Elfstone to the girl because not to do so would be to risk losing her completely and to face an eternity of being tracked by all of them.

Never leave your enemies alive to follow after you, he thought.

Better to kill them when you had the chance.

Daylight was fading rapidly by the time Walker, Morgan, and Quickening approached the building Pe Ell and Horner Dees had vacated less than an hour earlier. The rain was falling steadily, a dark curtain that shaded the tall, somber buildings of the city, that masked away the skies and the mountains and the sea. Morgan walked with his arm protectively encircling the girl’s shoulders, his head lowered to hers, two shadowed and hooded figures against the mist. Walker stayed apart, leaving them to each other. He saw how Quickening leaned into the Highlander. She seemed to welcome his embrace, an uncharacteristic response. Something had happened to her during the confrontation with the Stone King that he had missed, and he was only now beginning to make sense of what it was.

A thick stream of rainwater clogged the gutter ahead, blocking the walkway’s end like a moat, and he was forced to move outside and around it. He was leading still, choosing their path, his cloaked form darkened by rain and gloom. A wraith, perhaps, he thought. A Grimpond, he corrected. He had not thought of the Grimpond for a long time, the memory too painful to retrieve from the corner of his mind to which he had confined it. It was the Grimpond with its twisted riddles who had led him to the Hall of Kings and his encounter with the Asphinx. It was the Grimpond who had cost him his arm, his spirit, and something of what he had been. Wounded in body and spirit—that was how he saw himself. It would make the Grimpond glad if it knew.

He lifted his face momentarily and let the rain wash over it, cooling his skin. He hadn’t thought it possible to be so hot in such dank weather.

It was the Grimpond’s visions, of course, that haunted him—the three dark and enigmatic glimpses of the future, not accurate necessarily, lies twisted into half-truths, truths shaded by lies, but real. The first had already come to pass; he had sworn he would cut off his hand before he would take up the Druid cause and that was exactly what he had done. Then he had taken up the cause anyway. Ironic, poetic, terrifying.

The second vision was of Quickening. The third...

His good hand clenched. The truth was, he never got beyond thinking about the second. Quickening. In some way, he would fail her. She would reach out to him for help, he would have the chance to save her from falling, and he would let her die. He would stand there and watch her tumble away into some dark abyss. That was the Grimpond’s vision. That was what would come to pass unless he could find a way to prevent it.

He had not, of course, been able to prevent the first.

Disgust filled him, and he banished his memory of the Grimpond back to the distant corner from which it had been set loose. The Grimpond, he reminded himself, was itself a lie. But, then, wasn’t he a lie as well? Wasn’t that what he had become, so determined to keep himself clear of Druid machinations, so ready to disdain all use of the magic except that which served to sustain his own narrow beliefs, and so certain that he could be master of his own destiny? He had lied to himself repeatedly, deceived himself knowingly, pretended all things, and made his life a travesty. He was mired in his misconceptions and pretenses. He was doing what he had sworn he would never do—the work of the Druids, the recovery of their magic, the undertaking of their will. Worse, he was committed to a course of action which could only result in his destruction—a confrontation with the Stone King to take back the Black Elfstone. Why? He was clinging to this course of action as if it were the only thing that would stop his drifting, as if it were all that was left that would keep him from drowning, the only choice that remained.

Surely it was not.

He peered through the damp at the city and realized again how much he missed the forestlands of Hearthstone. It was more than the city’s stone, its harsh and oppressive feel, its constant mist and rain. There was no color in Eldwist, nothing to wash clean his sight, to brighten and warm his spirit. There were only shadings of gray, a blurring of shadows layered one upon another. He felt himself in some way a mirror of the city. Perhaps Uhl Belk was changing him just as he changed the land, draining off the colors of his life, reducing him to something as hard and lifeless as stone. How far could the Stone King reach? he wondered. How deep into your soul? Was there any limit? Could he stretch his arms out all the way to Darklin Reach and Hearthstone? Could he find a human heart? In time, probably. And time was nothing to a creature that had lived so long.

They crossed to the front entry of their after-dark refuge and began to climb the stairs. Because Walker led, he saw the stains of rainwater preceding him on the stone steps that his own trailing dampness masked to those following. Someone had entered and gone out again recently. Horner Dees? But Dees was supposedly already there and waiting for their return.

They moved down the maze of hallways to the room which served as their base of operations. The room was empty. Walker’s eyes swept the trail of dampness to the shadows of the doors exiting through each wall; his ears probed the quiet. He crossed to where someone had seated himself and eaten.

His instincts triggered unexpectedly.

He could almost smell Pe Ell.

“Horner? Where are you?” Morgan was peering into other rooms and corridors, calling for the old Tracker. Walker met Quickening’s gaze and said nothing. The Highlander ducked out momentarily, then back in again. “He said he would wait right here. I don’t understand.”

“He must have changed his mind,” Walker offered quietly.

Morgan looked unconvinced. “I think I’ll take a look around.”

He went out the door they had come through, leaving the Dark Uncle and the daughter of the King of the Silver River staring at each other in the gloom.

“Pe Ell was here,” she said, her black eyes locked on his.

He let the fire of her gaze warm him; he felt that familiar sense of kinship, of shared magics. “I don’t sense a struggle,” he said. “There is no blood, no disruption.”

Quickening nodded soberly and waited. When he didn’t speak further, she crossed to stand before him. “What are you thinking, Walker Boh?” she asked, discomfort in her eyes. “What have you been thinking all the way back, so lost within yourself?”

Her hands reached out to take his arm, to hold it tight. Her face lifted and the silver hair tumbled back, bathed in the weak gray light. “Tell me.”

He felt himself laid bare, a thin, rumpled, battered life with barely enough strength remaining to keep from crumbling entirely. The ache in him stretched from his severed limb to his heart, physical and emotional both, an all-encompassing wave that threatened to sweep him away.

“Quickening.” He spoke her name softly, and the sound of it seemed to steady him. “I was thinking you are more human than you would admit.”

Puzzlement flashed across her perfect features.

He smiled, sad, ironic. “I might be a poor judge of such things, less responsive than I should be, a refugee from years of growing up a boy with no friends and few companions, of living alone too much. But I see something of myself in you. You are frightened by the feelings you have discovered in yourself. You admit to possessing the human emotions your father endowed you with when he created you, but you disdain to accept what you perceive to be their consequences. You love the Highlander—yet you try to mask it. You shut it away. You despise Pe Ell—yet you play with him as a lure would a fish. You grapple with your emotions, yet refuse to acknowledge them. You work so hard to hide from your feelings.”

Her eyes searched his. “I am still learning.”

“Reluctantly. When you confronted the Stone King, you were quick to state what had brought you. You told him everything; you hid nothing. There was no attempt at deception or ruse. Yet when Uhl Belk refused your demand—as you surely knew he would—you grew angry, almost...” He searched for the word. “Almost frantic,” he finished. “It was the first time I can remember when you allowed your feelings to surface openly, without concern for who might witness them.”

He saw a flicker of understanding in her eyes. “Your anger was real, Quickening. It was a measure of your pain. I think you wanted Uhl Belk to give you the Black Elfstone because of something you believe will happen if he does not. Is that so?”

She hesitated, torn, then let her breath escape slowly, wearily. “Yes.”

“You believe that we will gain the Elfstone. I know that you do. You believe it because your father told you it would be so.”

“Yes.”

“But you also believe, as he told you, that it will require the magics of those you brought with you to secure it. No amount of talking, no manner of persuasion, will convince Uhl Belk to give it up. Yet you felt you had to try.”

Her eyes were stricken. “I am frightened...” Her voice caught.

He bent close. “Of what? Tell me.”

Morgan Leah appeared in the doorway. He slowed, watched Walker Boh draw back from Quickening, and completed his entrance. “Nothing,” he said. “No sign of Horner. It’s dark out now; the Rake will be about. I’ll have to postpone any search until tomorrow.” He came up to them and stopped. “Is something wrong?” he asked quietly.

“No,” said Quickening.

“Yes,” said Walker.

Morgan stared. “Which is it?”

Walker Boh felt the shadows of the room close about, as if darkness had descended all at once, intending to trap them there. They stood facing one another across a void, the Highlander, the Dark Uncle, and the girl. There was a sense of having reached an expected crossroads, of now having to choose a path which offered no return, of having to make a decision from which there was no retreat.

“The Stone King...” Quickening began in a whisper.

“We’re going back for the Black Elfstone,” Walker Boh finished.

Barely a mile away, at a window two floors up in a building fronting the lair of the Rake, Pe Ell and Horner Dees waited for the Creeper to emerge. They had been in position for some time, settled carefully back in the shadows with the patience of experienced hunters. The rain had stopped finally, turned to mist as the air cooled and stilled. A thin vapor rose off the stone of the streets in wisps that curled upward like snakes. From somewhere deep underground came the faint rumble of the Maw Grint awakening.

Pe Ell was thinking of the men he had killed. It was strange, but he could no longer remember who they were. For a time he had kept count, first out of curiosity, later out of habit, but eventually the number had grown so large and the passing of time so great that he simply lost track. Faces that had been clear in the beginning began to merge and then to fade altogether. Now it seemed he could remember only the first and the last clearly.

The fact that his victims had lost all sense of identity was disconcerting. It suggested that he was losing the sharpness of mind that his work required. It suggested that he was losing interest.

He stared into the blackness of the night and felt an unfamiliar weariness engulf him.

He forced the weariness away irritably. It would be different, he promised himself, when he killed the girl. He might forget the faces of these others from Rampling Steep, the one-armed man, the Highlander, the tunesmith, and the old Tracker; after all, killing them was nothing more than a matter of necessity. But he would never forget Quickening. Killing her was a matter of pride. Even now he could visualize her as clearly as if she was seated next to him, the soft curve and sweep of the skin over her bones, the tilting of her face when she spoke, the way her eyes drew you in, the weave and sway of her hands when they moved. Surely she was the most wondrous of creatures, spellbinding in a way that defied explanation. Hers was the magic of the King of the Silver River and therefore as old as the beginning of life. He wanted to drink in that magic when he killed her; he believed he could. Once he had done so, she would be a part of him, living inside, a presence stronger than even the most indelible memory, stirring within him as nothing else could.

Horner Dees shifted softly beside him, relieving cramped muscles. Still wrapped in his private thoughts, Pe Ell did not glance over. He kept his eyes fixed on the flat surface of the hidden entry across the street. The shadows that cloaked it remained still and unmoving.

What would happen when he slid the blade of the Stiehl into her body? he wondered. What would he see in those depthless black eyes? What would he feel? The anticipation of the moment burned through him like fire. He had not thought of killing her for some time, waiting because he had no other choice if he was to secure the Black Elfstone, letting events take matters where they would. But the moment was close now, he believed. Once he had gained entry into the lair of the Rake, once he had discovered the hiding place of the Stone King, once he had secured possession of the Black Elfstone and disposed of Horner Dees...

He jerked upright.

Despite his readiness he was startled when across the way the stone panel lifted and the Rake emerged. He quickly dispensed with all further thoughts of Quickening. The Creeper’s dark body glimmered where thin streamers of starlight managed to penetrate the blanket of clouds and reflect off the plates of armor. The monster stepped through the entry, then paused momentarily as if something had alarmed it. Feelers lifted and probed the air tentatively; the whiplike tail curled and snapped. The two in hiding shrank lower into the shadows. The Creeper remained motionless a moment longer, then, apparently satisfied, reached back and triggered the release overhead. The stone panel slid into place. The Rake turned and scuttled away into the mist and gloom, its iron legs scraping the stone like trailing chains.

Pe Ell waited until he was certain it was gone, then motioned for Horner Dees to follow him. Together they slipped down to the street, crossed, and stood before the Rake’s lair. Dees produced the rope and grappling hook he was carrying and flung them toward a stone outcropping that projected above the secret entry. The grappling hook caught with a dull clank and held. Dees tested the rope, nodded, and passed the end to Pe Ell. Pe Ell climbed effortlessly, hand over hand, until he was level with the release. He triggered it, and the entry panel began to lift. Pe Ell dropped down quickly and, with Horner Dees beside him, watched the black cave of the building’s interior open into view.

Cautiously, they edged forward.

The entry ran back into deep shadow. Faint gray light slipped through the building’s upper windows, seeped downward through gaps in the ruined floors, and illuminated small patches of the blackness. There was no sound from within. There was no movement.

Pe Ell turned to Dees. “Watch the street,” he whispered. “Whistle if there’s trouble.”

He moved into the blackness, fading into it as comfortably as if he were one of its shadows. He was immediately at home, confident within its cloaking, his eyes and ears adjusting to its sweep. The walls of the building were bare and worn with age, damp in places where the rain had seeped through the mortar and run down the stone, tall and rigid against the faint light. Pe Ell slipped ahead, picking his way slowly, cautiously, waiting for something to show itself. He sensed nothing; the building seemed empty.

Something crunched underfoot, startling him. He peered down into the blackness. Bones littered the floor, hundreds of them, the remains of creatures the Rake had gathered in its nightly sweeps and carried back to its lair to consume.

The entry turned down a vast corridor to a larger hall and ended. No doors opened in, no passageways led out. The hall had once been an inner court and rose hundreds of feet through the building to a domed ceiling speckled with strange light patterns and the slow movement of shadows thrown by the clouds. The hall was silent. Pe Ell stared about in distress. He knew at once that there was nothing to discover—not the Stone King, not the Black Elfstone. He had guessed wrong. Anger and disappointment welled up within him, forcing him to continue his search even after he knew it was pointless. He started toward the far wall, scanning the mortared seams, the lines of floor and ceiling, desperate to find something.

Then Horner Dees whistled.

At almost the same moment Pe Ell heard the soft scrape of metal on stone.

He wheeled instantly and darted back through the darkened hall. The Rake had returned. There was no reason for it to have done so unless it had detected them. How? His mind raced, clawing back the layers of confusion. The Rake was blind, it relied on its other senses. It could not have seen them. Could it have smelled them? He had his answer instantly. Their scent about the doorway had alerted it; that was why it had paused. It had pretended to go out, waited, then circled back.

Pe Ell raged at his own stupidity. If he didn’t get out of there at once, he would be trapped.

He burst into the darkened entry just in time to discover that he was too late. Through the raised door he caught a glimpse of the Rake rounding the corner of the building across the way, moving as fast as its metal legs would carry it toward its lair. The rope and Horner Dees were gone. Pe Ell melted into the darkest section of one wall, sliding forward soundlessly. He had to reach the entrance and get past the Creeper before it triggered the release. If he failed, he would be caught in the creature’s lair. Even the Stiehl would not be enough to save him then.

The Rake rumbled up to the opening, iron claws rasping, and tentacles lashing out against the stone walls, beginning its probe within. Pe Ell slipped the Stiehl free of its sheath and crouched down against the dark. He would have to be quick. He was oddly calm, the way he was before a kill. He watched the monster fill the opening and start to move through.

At once he was up and running. The Rake sensed him instantly, its instincts even keener than Pe Ell’s. A tentacle lashed out and caught him, inches from the door. The Stiehl whipped up, severing the limb, freeing the assassin once more. The Rake wheeled about, huffing. Pe Ell tried to run, but there were snaking arms everywhere.

Then the grappling hook shot out of the darkness behind the advancing Creeper, wrapping about its back legs. The rope securing it went taut, and the monster was jerked backward. Its limbs flailed, and its claws dug in. For a moment its attention was diverted. That moment was enough. Pe Ell was past it in a split second, racing into the street, darting to safety. Almost immediately Horner Dees was running beside him, his bearish form laboring from the strain. Behind them, they heard the rope snap and the Rake start after in pursuit.

“Here!” Dees yelled, pulling Pe Ell left into a gaping doorway.

They ran through an entry, up several flights of stairs, down a hall, and out onto a back ramp that crossed to another building. The Creeper lumbered behind, smashing everything that blocked its way. The men hastened into the building at the end of the ramp and down a second set of stairs to the street again. The sounds of pursuit were beginning to fade. They slowed, rounded a corner, peered cautiously down the empty street, then followed the walkway south several blocks to where a cluster of smaller buildings offered an impassable warren into which they quickly crept. Safe within, they slid down wearily, backs to the wall, side by side, breathing heavily in the stillness.

“I thought you’d run,” Pe Ell said, gasping.

Dees grunted, shook his head. “I would have, but I gave my word. What do we do now?”

Pe Ell’s body steamed with sweat, but deep inside a cold fury was building. He could still feel the Rake’s tentacle wrapped about his body. He could still feel it beginning to squeeze. He experienced such revulsion that he could barely keep from screaming aloud.

Nothing had ever come so close to killing him.

He turned to Horner Dees, watched the rough, bearded face furrow, the eyes glitter. Pe Ell’s voice was chilly with rage. “You can do what you wish, old man,” he whispered. “But I’m going back to kill that thing.”