The Druid of Shannara

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Morgan Leah was appalled. “What do you mean we’re going back?” he demanded of Walker Boh. He was not just appalled; he was terrified. “Who gave you the right to decide anything, Walker? Quickening is leader of this company, not you!”

“Morgan,” the girl said softly. She tried to take his hand, but he stepped quickly away.

“No. I want this settled. What’s going on here? I leave the room for just a moment, just long enough to make sure Horner isn’t... and when I come back I find you close enough to...” He choked on the words, his brown face flushing as the impact of what he was saying caught up with him. “I...”

“Morgan, listen to me,” Quickening finished. “We have to recover the Black Elfstone. We have to.”

The Highlander’s fists clenched helplessly. He was aware of how foolish he looked, how young. He made a studied effort to control himself. “If we go back there, Quickening, we will be killed. We didn’t know what we were up against before; now we do. Uhl Belk is too much for us. We all saw the same thing—a creature changed into something only vaguely human, armored in stone, and capable of brushing us aside like we were nothing. He’s part of the land itself. How do we fight something like that? He’ll swallow us whole before we have a chance even to get close!”

He forced his breathing to slow. “And that’s only if he doesn’t call the Maw Grint or the Rake first. We can’t stand up to them let alone him. Think about it, will you? What if he chooses to use the Elfstone against us! Then what do we do—you without any magic at all that you can use, me with a broken sword that’s lost most of its magic, and Walker with... I don’t know, what? With what, Walker? What are you?”

The Dark Uncle was unfazed by the attack, his pale face expressionless, his eyes steady as they fixed on the Highlander. “I am what I always was, Morgan Leah.”

“Less an arm!” Morgan snapped and regretted it immediately. “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

“But it is true,” the other replied quietly.

Morgan looked away awkwardly for a moment, then back again. “Look at us,” he whispered. “We’re barely alive. We’ve trekked all the way to the end of the world and it’s just about finished us. Carisman’s already dead. Maybe Horner Dees as well. We’re beaten up. We look like scarecrows. We haven’t had a bath in weeks, unless you want to count getting rained on. We’re dressed in rags. We’ve been running and hiding so long we don’t know how to fight anymore. We’re caught in this gray, dismal world where all we see is stone and rain and mist. I hate this place. I want to see trees and grass and living things again. I don’t want to die here. I especially don’t want to die when there is no reason for it! And that’s exactly what will happen if we go looking for the Stone King. Tell me, Walker, what chance do we have?”

To his surprise, Walker Boh said, “A better chance than you think. Sit down a minute and listen.”

Morgan hesitated, suspicion mirrored in his eyes. Then slowly he sat, his anger and frustration momentarily spent. He allowed Quickening to move next to him again, to wrap her arms about him. He let the heat of her body soak through him.

Walker Boh crossed his legs before him and pulled his dark cloak close. “It is true that we appear to be little more than beggars off some Southland city street, that we have nothing with which to threaten Uhl Belk, that we are as insignificant to him as the smallest insects that crawl upon the land. But that appearance may be an illusion we can use. It may give us the chance we need to defeat him. He sees us as nothing. He does not fear us. He disdains to worry about us at all. It is possible that he has already forgotten us. He believes himself invulnerable. Perhaps we can use that against him.”

The dark eyes were intense. “He is not what he believes, Highlander. He has evolved beyond the spirit creature he was born, beyond anything he was intended to be. I believe he has evolved even beyond the King of the Silver River. But his evolution has not been a natural one. His evolution has been brought about by his usage of the Black Elfstone. It is ironic, but the Druids protected their magic better than Uhl Belk realizes. He thinks that he stole it easily and uses it without consequence. But he is wrong. Just by calling up the Elfstone’s magic, he is destroying himself.”

Morgan Leah stared. “What are you talking about?”

“Listen to him, Morgan,” Quickening cautioned, her soft face bent close, her dark eyes expectant.

“I did not understand before today what it was that the Black Elfstone was intended to do,” Walker Boh continued, hurrying now, anxious to complete his explanation. “I was given the Druid History by Cogline and told to read it. I learned that the Black Elfstone existed and that its purpose was to release Paranor from its spell and return it to the world of men. I learned from Quickening that the Black Elfstone’s magic was conceived to negate the effects of other magics—thus the magic that sealed away Paranor could be dispelled. Such power, Highlander! How could such power exist? I kept wondering if it was possible, and if possible, why the Druids—who were so careful in such matters—took no better precautions to protect against its misuse. After all, the Black Elfstone was the only magic that could restore their Keep, that could initiate the process that would restore them to power. Would they let that magic slip away so easily? Would they allow it to be utilized by others, even a creature as powerful as Uhl Belk?

“I knew, of course, that they would not. But how could they prevent it? Today I discovered the answer to that question. I watched the Stone King summon the Maw Grint; I watched what passed between father and son. Did you see it? When Uhl Belk invoked the power of the Stone, there was a binding of the two, a bringing together. The magic was a catalyst. But what did it do? I wondered. It seemed to give life to them both. It was clearly addictive; they reveled in its use. The magic of the Black Elfstone was stronger than their own in the moment of its release. It was so strong that they could not resist what it was doing to them; in fact, they welcomed its coming.”

He paused, and his voice lowered to a guarded whisper. The room’s shadows cloaked them like conspirators. “This is what I believe must happen when the magic is invoked. Yes, it negates whatever magic it is directed against, just as the Druid History suggests, just as Quickening was told by her father. It confronts and steals away that magic’s power. But it must do more. It cannot simply cause the magic to disappear. It cannot take a magic and change it into air. Something must happen to that magic. The laws of nature require it. What it does, I believe, is to absorb and transfer the effects of that other magic to the user of the Stone. When Uhl Belk turns the Black Elfstone on the Maw Grint he takes his child’s magic and makes it his own; he takes the poison that transforms the land and its creatures to stone and alters himself as well. That is why he has evolved as he has. And perhaps even more important than that, each time he siphons off a part of the Maw Grint’s magic, Uhl Belk is brought close again for a few moments to the son he created. Using the Black Elfstone to share the Maw Grint’s magic has given them a bond they could not otherwise enjoy. They hate and fear each other, but they need each other as well. They feed on each other, a giving and taking that only the Black Elfstone can facilitate. It is as close as they can come to a father/son relationship. It is the only bond they can share.”

He hunched forward. “But it is killing Uhl Belk. It is changing him to stone entirely. In time, he will disappear into the stone that encases him. He will become like any other statue—inanimate. He is doing it to himself without even realizing it. That is the way the Elfstone works; that is why he was able to steal it so easily. The Druids didn’t care. They knew that anyone using it would suffer the consequences eventually. Magic cannot be absorbed without consequence. Uhl Belk is addicted to that magic. He needs the feeling of transformation, of adding to his stone body, to his land, to his kingdom of self. He could not stop now even if he tried.”

“But how does this help us?” Morgan asked, impatient once more. He hunched forward curiously, caught up in the possibilities that Walker’s explanation offered. “Even if you’re right, what difference does it make? You’re not suggesting that we simply wait until Uhl Belk kills himself, are you?”

Walker Boh shook his head. “We haven’t time enough for that. The process may take years. But Uhl Belk is not as invulnerable as he believes. He has become largely dependent on the Black Elfstone, cocooned within his stone keep, changed mostly to stone himself, interested not so much in what is happening about him as in the feeding he requires so that his mutation can continue. He is largely stationary. Did you watch him when he tried to move? He cannot change positions quickly; he is welded to the rock of the floor. His magic is old and unused; most of what he does relates to feeding himself through use of the Stone. Fear of losing the Black Elfstone, of being deprived of his source of feeding, and of being left to the questionable mercy of his maddened child dominates his thinking. He has crippled himself with his obsessions. That gives us a chance to defeat him.”

Morgan studied the other’s face wordlessly for several long moments, thinking the matter through in spite of his reluctance to believe there was any possibility of succeeding, conscious of Quickening’s eyes on him as he did so. He had always believed in Walker Boh’s ability to reason matters through when others could not. He was the one who had suggested Par and Coll Ohmsford go to their uncle when they needed advice in dealing with the dreams of Allanon. He was frightened by what the Dark Uncle was suggesting, but not so big a fool as to discount it entirely.

Finally he said, “Everything you say may be so, Walker, but you have forgotten something. We still have to get inside the dome to have any chance of overcoming Uhl Belk. And he’s not going to invite us in a second time. He’s already made that clear. Since we haven’t been able to find a way in on our own, how are we supposed to get close enough to do anything?”

Walker folded his hands before him thoughtfully. “Uhl Belk made a mistake when he admitted us to the dome. I was able to sense things that were hidden from me before, when I was forced to stand without. I was able to divine the nature of his fortress keep. He has settled himself above that cavern where the rats cornered us while we were searching the tunnels beneath the city. He places the Tiderace between himself and the Maw Grint’s underground lair. But he miscalculated in doing so. The constant changing of the tide has worn and eroded portions of the stone on which he rests.”

The Dark Uncle’s eyes narrowed. “There is an opening that leads into the dome from beneath.”

Another pair of eyes narrowed as well, these in disbelief as Horner Dees weighed the implications of Pe Ell’s words in the dark silence of the building in which the two men were crouched. “Kill it?” he questioned finally, unable to keep himself from repeating the other’s words. “Why would you want to do that?”

“Because it’s out there!” Pe Ell snapped impatiently, as if that explained everything.

His stare challenged the Tracker, daring him to object. When Dees did not respond, Pe Ell bent forward like a hawk at hunt. “How long have we been in this city, old man—a week, two? I can’t even remember anymore. It seems as if we’ve been here forever! One thing I do know. Ever since we arrived, that thing has been hunting us. Every night, everywhere we .go! The Rake, sweeping up the streets, cleaning up the garbage. Well, I’ve had enough!”

He was stiff with rage, fighting back against the memory of that iron tentacle wrapped about him, struggling to control his revulsion. When he killed, it was quick and clean. Not a slow squeezing, not a death that choked and strangled. And nothing ever touched him. Nothing ever got close.

Not until now.

His failure to find the Stone King in the Rake’s lair hadn’t done anything to improve his disposition either. He had been certain that he would find Uhl Belk and the Black Elfstone. Instead, he had almost succeeded in getting himself killed.

His knife-blade face was set and raw with feeling. “I won’t be hunted anymore. A Creeper can die like anything else.” He paused. “Think about this. Once it’s dead, maybe the Stone King will show himself. Maybe he’ll come out to see what killed his watchdog. Then we’ll have him!”

Horner Dees did not look convinced. “You’re not thinking straight.”

Pe Ell flushed. “Are you frightened once more, old man?”

“Of course. But that doesn’t have anything to do with the matter. The fact is, you’re supposed to be a professional killer, an assassin. You don’t kill without a reason and never without being sure that the odds are in your favor. I don’t see any evidence of that here.”

“Then you’re not looking hard enough!” Pe El was furious. “You already have the reason! Haven’t you been listening? It doesn’t have to be money and it doesn’t have to be someone else’s idea! Do you want to find Uhl Belk or not? As for the odds, I’ll find a way to change them!”

Pe Ell rose and wheeled away momentarily to face the dark. He shouldn’t care one way or the other what this old man thought; it shouldn’t matter in the least. But somehow, for some reason, it did, and he refused to give Dees the satisfaction of thinking he was somehow misguided. He hated to admit that Horner Dees might have saved his life, even that he might have helped him escape. The old man was a thorn in his side that needed removing. Dees had come out of his past like a ghost, come out of a time he had thought safely buried. No one alive should know who he was or what he had done save Rimmer Dall. No one should be able to talk about him.

He found suddenly that he wanted Horner Dees dead almost as much as he wanted to dispose of the Rake.

Except that the Rake was the more immediate problem.

He turned back to the old Tracker. “I’ve wasted enough time on you,” he snapped. “Go back to the others. I don’t need your help.”

Horner Dees shrugged. “I wasn’t offering it.”

Pe Ell started for the door.

“Just out of curiosity,” Dees called after him, rising now as well, “how do you plan to kill it?”

“What difference does it make to you?” Pe Ell called over his shoulder.

“You don’t have a plan, do you?”

Pe Ell stopped dead in the doorway, seized by an almost overpowering urge to finish off the troublesome Dees here and now. After all, why wait any longer? The others would never know. His hand dropped through the crease in his pants to close about the Stiehl.

“Thing is,” Horner Dees said suddenly, “you can’t kill the Rake even if you manage to get close enough to use that blade of yours.”

Pe Ell’s fingers released. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that even if you lay in wait for the thing, say you drop on it from above or sneak up on it from underneath—not likely, but say that you do—you still can’t kill it quick enough.” The sharp eyes glittered. “Oh, you can cut off a tentacle or two, maybe sever a leg, or even put out an eye. But that won’t kill it. Where do you stab it that will kill it, Pe Ell? Do you know? I don’t. Before you’ve taken two cuts, the Rake will have you. Damage the thing? A Creeper builds itself right back again, finds spare pieces of metal and puts what it’s lost back in place.”

Pe Ell smiled—mean, sardonic, empty of warmth. “I’ll find a way.”

Dees nodded. “Sure you will.” He paused deliberately, his bearish frame shifting, changing his weight from one foot to the other. In the near darkness, he seemed like a piece of the wall breaking loose. “But not without a plan.”

Pe Ell looked away in disgust, shook his head, then looked back again. He’d spent too much time trudging about this dismal city, this tomb of stone and damp. He’d been fighting too long to keep from being swallowed up in its belly. That coupled with prolonged exposure to Quickening’s magic had eroded his instincts, dulled the edge of his sharpness, and twisted the clearness of his thought. He was at a point where the only thing that mattered was getting back to where he had started from, to the world beyond Eldwist, and to the life that he had so fully controlled.

But not without the Black Elfstone. He would not give it up.

And not without Quickening’s life. He would not give that up either.

Meanwhile, Horner Dees was trying to tell him something. It never hurt to listen. He made himself go very still inside—everything, right down to his thoughts. “You have a plan of your own, don’t you?” he whispered.

“I might.”

“I’m listening.”

“Maybe there’s something to what you say about killing the Rake. Maybe that will bring Belk out of hiding. Something has to be tried.” The admission came grudgingly.

“I’m still listening.”

“It’ll take the two of us. Same agreement as before. We look out for each other until the matter’s done. Then it’s every man for himself. Your word.”

“You have it.”

Horner Dees shuffled forward until he was right in front of Pe Ell, much closer than Pe Ell wanted him, wheezing like he’d run a mile, grinning through his shaggy beard, big hands knotting into fists.

“What I think we ought to do,” he said softly, “is drop the Rake down a deep hole.”

Morgan Leah stared at Walker Boh wordlessly for a moment, then shook his head. He was surprised at how calm his voice sounded. “It won’t work. You said yourself that the Stone King isn’t just a moving statue; he’s made himself a part of the land. He’s everything in Eldwist. You saw what he did when he finally decided to let us into the dome and then after, when he summoned the Maw Grint. He just split the rock wall apart. His own skin, Walker. Don’t you think he’ll know if we try to climb through that same skin from beneath? Don’t you think he’ll be able to feel it? What do you think will happen to us then? Squish!”

Morgan made a grinding motion with his palms. A dark flush crept into his face; he found that he was shaking.

Walker’s expression never changed. “What you suggest is possible, but unlikely. Uhl Belk may be the heart and soul of the land he has created, but he is also, like it, a thing of stone. Stone feels nothing, senses nothing. Uhl Belk would not have even discovered we were here if he had been forced to rely on his external senses. It was our use of magic that alerted him. There may remain enough of him that is human to detect intruders, but he relies principally on the Rake. If we can avoid using magic we can enter the dome before he knows what we are about.”

Morgan started to object, then cut himself short. Quickening was clutching his arm so hard it hurt. “Morgan,” she whispered urgently. “We can do it. Walker Boh is right. This is our chance.”

“Our chance?” Morgan looked down at her, fighting to keep his balance as the black eyes threatened to drown him, finding her impossibly beautiful all over again. “Our chance to do what, Quickening?” He forced his gaze away from her, fixing on Walker. “Suppose that you are right about all this, that we can get into the dome without Belk knowing it. What difference does it make? What are we supposed to do then? Use our broken magics, the three of us—a weaponless girl, a one-armed man, and a man with half a sword? Aren’t we right back where we started with this conversation?”

He ignored Quickening’s hands as they pulled at him. “I won’t pretend with you, Walker. You can see what I’m thinking. You can with everyone. I’m terrified. I admit it. If I had the Sword of Leah whole again, I would stand a chance against something like Uhl Belk. But I don’t. And I don’t have any innate magic like you and Par. I just have myself. I’ve stayed alive this long by accepting my limitations. That’s how I was able to fight the Federation officials who occupy my homeland; that’s how I managed to survive against something far bigger and stronger. You have to pick and choose your battles. The Stone King is a monster with monsters to command, and I don’t see how the three of us can do anything about him.”

Quickening was shaking her head. “Morgan...”

“No,” he interrupted quickly, unable to stop himself now.

“Don’t say anything. Just listen. I have done everything you asked. I have given up other responsibilities I should have fulfilled to come north with you in search of Eldwist and Uhl Belk. I have stayed with you to find the Black Elfstone. I want you to succeed in what your father has sent you to do. But I don’t know how that can happen, Quickening. Do you? Can you tell me?”

She moved in front of him, her face lifting. “I can tell you that it will happen. My father has said it will be so.”

“With my magic and Walker’s and Pe Ell’s. I know. Well, then, what of Pe Ell? Isn’t he supposed to go with us? Don’t we need him if we are to succeed?”

She hesitated before giving her answer. “No. Pe Ell’s magic will be needed later.”

“Later. And your own?”

“I have no magic until you recover the Elfstone.”

“So it is left to Walker and me.”

“Yes.”

“Somehow.”

“Yes.”

Walker Boh stepped forward impatiently, his pale face hard. “Enough, Highlander. You make it sound as if this were some mystical process that required divine intervention or the wisdom of the dead. There is nothing difficult about what we are being asked to do. The Stone King holds the Black Elfstone; he must be made to give it up. We must sneak through the floor of the dome and surprise him. We must find a way to shock him, to stun him, to do something that will make him release his grip on the Stone, then snatch it from him. We don’t have to stand against him in battle; we don’t have to slay him. This isn’t a contest of strength; it is a contest of will. And cleverness. We must be more clever than he.”

The Dark Uncle’s eyes burned. “We have not come all this way, Morgan Leah, just to turn around and go back again. We knew there were no answers to be given to our questions, that we would have to find a way to do everything that was required. We have done so. We need to do so only one time more. If we don’t, the Elfstone is lost to us. That means that the Four Lands are lost as well. The Shadowen have won. Cogline and Rumor died for nothing. Your friend Steff died for nothing. Is that what you wish? Is that your intent? Is it, Morgan Leah?”

Morgan pushed past Quickening and seized the front of the other’s cloak. Walker seized his in turn. For an instant they braced each other without speaking, Morgan’s face contorted with rage, Walker’s smooth and intense.

“I am frightened, too, Highlander,” Walker Boh said softly. “I have fears that go far beyond what we are being asked to do here. I have been charged by the shade of Allanon with using the Black Elfstone to bring back Paranor and the Druids. If using the Elfstone on the Maw Grint turned Uhl Belk to stone, what will using it on disappeared Paranor do to me?”

There was a long, empty silence in which the question hung skeletal and forbidding against the dark of the room. Then Walker whispered, “It doesn’t matter, you see. I have to find out.”

Morgan let the other’s cloak slip from his fingers. He took a slow step back. “Why are we doing this?” he whispered in reply. “Why?”

Walker Boh almost smiled. “You know why, Morgan Leah. Because there is no one else.”

Morgan laughed in spite of himself. “Brave soldiers? Or fools?”

“Maybe both. And maybe we are just stubborn.”

“That sounds right.” Morgan sighed wearily, pushing back the oppressiveness of the dark and damp, fighting through his sense of futility. “I just think there should be more answers than there are.”

Walker nodded. “There should. Instead, there are only reasons and they will have to suffice.”

Morgan’s mind spun with memories of the past, of his friends missing and dead, of his struggle to stay alive, and of the myriad quests that had taken him from his home in the Highlands and brought him at last to this farthest corner of the world. So much had happened, most of it beyond his control. He felt small and helpless in the face of those events, a tiny bit of refuse afloat in the ocean, carried on tides and by whim. He was sick and worn; he wanted some form of resolution. Perhaps only death was resolution enough.

“Let me speak with him,” he heard Quickening say.

Alone, they knelt at the center of the room in shadow, facing each other, their faces so close that Morgan could see his reflection in her dark eyes. Walker had disappeared. Quickening’s hands reached out to him, and he let her fingers come to rest on his face, tracing the line of his bones.

“I am in love with you, Morgan Leah,” she whispered. “I want you to know that. It sounds strange to me to say such a thing. I never thought I would be able to do so. I have fears of my own, different from yours and Walker Boh’s. I am afraid of being too much alive.”

She bent forward and kissed him. “Do you understand what I mean when I say that? An elemental gains life not out of the love of a man and a woman for each other but out of magic’s need. I was created to serve a purpose, my father’s purpose, and I was told to be wary of things that would distract me. What could distract me more, Morgan Leah, than the love I have for you? I cannot explain that love. I do not understand it. It comes from the part of me that is human and surfaces despite my efforts to deny it. What am I to do with this love? I tell myself I must disdain it. It is... dangerous. But I cannot give it up because the feeling of it gives me life. I become more than a thing of earth and water, more than a bit of clay made whole. I become real.”

He kissed her back, hard and determined, frightened by what she was telling him, by the sound of the words, by the implications they carried. He did not want to hear more.

She broke away. “You must listen to me, Morgan. I had thought to keep to my father’s path and not to stray. His advice seemed sound. But I find now that I cannot heed it. I must love you. It does not matter what is meant for either of us; we are not alive if we do not respond to our feelings. So it is that I will love you in every way that I am able; I will not be frightened any longer by what that means.”

“Quickening...”

“But,” she said hurriedly, “the path remains clear before us nevertheless and we must follow it, you and I. We have been shown where it leads, and we must continue to its end. The Stone King must be overcome. The Black Elfstone must be recovered. You and I and Walker Boh must see that these things are done. We must, Morgan. We must.”

He was nodding as she spoke, helpless in the face of her persistence, his love for her so strong that he would have done anything she asked despite the gravest reservations. The tears started in her eyes, but he forced them back, burying his face in her shoulder, hugging her close. He combed her silver hair with his fingers; he stroked the curve of her back. He felt her slim arms go around him, and her body tremble.

“I know,” he answered softly.

He thought then of Steff, dying at the hands of the girl he had loved, thinking her something she was not. Would it be so with him? he wondered suddenly. He thought, too, of the promise he had once made his friend, a promise they had all made, Par and Coll and he, that if any of them found a magic that would help free the Dwarves, they would do what they could to recover it and see that it was used. Surely the Black Elfstone was such a magic.

He felt a calm settle through him, dissipating the anger and foreboding, the doubt and uncertainty. The path was indeed laid out for him, and he had never had any choice but to follow it.

“We’ll find a way,” he whispered to her and felt her own tears dampen his cheek.

Standing in the blackness of the room beyond, Walker Boh looked back at the lovers as they embraced and felt the warmth of their closeness reach out to him like a lost child’s tiny hands. He turned away. There could be no such love for him. He felt an instant’s remorse and brushed it hastily aside. His future was a shining bit of certainty in the darkness of his present. Sometimes his prescience revealed a cutting edge.

He moved soundlessly through the building until he reached an open window high above the street and looked down into the roil of mist and gloom. The world of Eldwist was a maze of stone obstructions and corridors that glared back at him through a hard, wet sheen. It was harsh and certain and pointless and it reminded him of the direction of his life.

Yet now, at last, his life might become something more.

One puzzle remained. The Highlander had touched on it, brushed by it in his effort to understand how it was that they could stand against a being with the power of Uhl Belk. The puzzle had been with them since the beginning of their journey, a constant presence, and an enigma that refused to be revealed.

The puzzle was Quickening. The daughter of the King of the Silver River, created out of the elements of the Garden, given life out of magic—she was a riddle of words in another tongue. She had been sent to bring them all into Eldwist. But wouldn’t a summons have done the job as well? Or even a dream? Instead the King of the Silver River had sent a living, breathing bit of wonder, a creature so beautiful she defied belief. Why? She was here for a reason, and it was a reason beyond that which she had revealed.

Walker Boh felt a dark place inside shiver with the possibilities.

What was it that Quickening had really been sent to do?