The Wishsong of Shannara

Chapter Forty–Four

The steps of the Croagh sped away beneath Jair’s feet as he hastened after Garet Jax and Slanter, and it seemed to him as he climbed that each step must surely be his last. The muscles knotted and cramped within his body, and pain from his wound lanced through him, wearing away at his already failing strength. He was gasping for breath, his lungs aching, and his sun–browned face streaked with sweat.

But somehow he kept pace. There was never any question of doing anything else.

His eyes swept upward along the Croagh as he ran, concentrating on the weave of stairs and railing, following the path of the roughened stone. He was conscious of the cliffs and fortress walls below him, distant now and fading further, and of Graymark and the Ravenshorn. He was conscious, too, of the valley all about, encased in mist and the half–light of a dusk that rapidly approached. Brief images slipped past the corners of his vision and were quickly forgotten, for none of that mattered now. Nothing mattered but the climb and what waited at its end.

Heaven’s Well.

And Brin. He would find her again in the waters of the well. He would discover what had become of her, and he would learn what it was that he must do to help her. The King of the Silver River had promised him that he would find a way to give Brin back to herself.

His boot slid out from under him suddenly as he stepped on a patch of crumbling stone and he fell forward, his hands scraping as he caught himself. Quickly he pushed back up again and hurried on, heedless of the damage.

Ahead, the other two ran effortlessly on — Garet Jax and Slanter, the last of the little company that had come north from Culhaven. Bitterness and anger flooded through the Valeman. Flashes of light danced before his eyes as he fought for breath momentarily, exhaustion sweeping through him. But they were almost at their journey’s end.

The stone spiral of the Croagh swung suddenly right, and the wall of the peak toward which they climbed rose close before them, rugged and stark against the graying sky. Ahead, the stairway ascended to the dark mouth of a cavern that opened back into the heart of the mountain. Less than two dozen steps remained.

Garet Jax motioned for them to wait, then soundlessly climbed the last few stairs to the summit of the Croagh and stepped out onto the ledge. He stood there a moment, his black form framed against the afternoon sky, lean and shadowy. He was like something inhuman, the thought flashed briefly through Jair’s mind, like something that wasn’t real.

The Weapons Master turned, gray eyes fixing on him. One hand beckoned.

«Hurry, boy,” Slanter muttered.

They scrambled up the remaining steps of the Croagh and stood beside Garet Jax. The cavern loomed before them, a monstrous chamber split by dozens of crevices that let in the light from without in dim, hazy streamers. Close about, the shadows gathered, and within their blackness nothing moved.

«Can’t see anything from here,” Slanter grumbled. He started forward, but instantly Garet Jax pulled him back.

«Wait, Gnome,” he said. «There’s something there… something that waits…»

His voice trailed away softly. A stillness settled down about them, deep and oppressive. Even the wind that stirred the mists of the valley seemed to die suddenly away. Jair caught his breath and held it. There was indeed something there — waiting. He could feel its presence.

«Garet…» he began softly.

«Shhhhh.»

Then a shadow detached itself from the rocks within the cavern entrance, and Jair went cold to the bone. Silently, the shadow slipped through the gloom. It was nothing that any of them had ever seen. It was neither a Gnome nor a Wraith, but a powerfully built creature, almost man–shaped, with a thick ruff about its loins and great, hooked claws at its fingers and toes. Cruel yellow eyes fixed on them, and a scarred, bestial face split wide at its snout to reveal a mass of crooked teeth.

The thing came forward into the light and stopped. It was not black like the Wraiths. It was red.

«What is it?» Jair whispered, fighting to contain the sense of revulsion that swept through him.

The Jachyra gave a sudden cry — a howl that rang through the silence like hideous laughter.

«Valeman, it is the dream!» Garet Jax cried, a strange, wild look crossing his hard face. Slowly he lowered the blade of the sword until it touched the ledge rock. Then he turned to Jair. «Journey’s end,” he whispered.

Jair shook his head in confusion. «Garet, what… ?»

«The dream! The vision that I told you about that night in the rain when we first spoke of the King of the Silver River! The dream that brought me east with you, Valeman — this is it!»

«But the dream showed you a thing of fire…» Jair stammered.

«Fire, yes — that was how it appeared!» Garet Jax cut him short. He let his breath out slowly. «Until now, I thought that perhaps — in a way that I could not fathom — I had mistaken what I had seen. But in the dream, as I stood before the fire and the voice that told me what I must do died away, the fire cried out like a thing alive. It was a cry that was almost a laugh — the cry that this creature has given!»‘

His gray eyes burned. «Valeman, this is the battle that I was promised!»

Before them, the Jachyra dropped into a crouch and began sidling forward from the cavern. Garet Jax brought the sword up at once.

«You mean to fight this thing?» Slanter was incredulous.

The other never even looked at him. «Keep back from me.»

«This is a poor idea if ever there was one!» Slanter looked frightened. «You know nothing of this creature. If it is poisonous like the one that attacked the Borderman…»

«I am not the Borderman, Gnome.» Garet Jax watched intently as the Jachyra approached. «I am the Weapons Master. And I have never lost a battle.»

The cold eyes flickered briefly in their direction and then fixed once more on the Jachyra. Jair started toward him, but Slanter grabbed his shoulder roughly and pulled him back again. «No, you don’t,” the Gnome snapped. «He wants this fight — let him have it! Never lost a battle! Lost his mind, that’s what he’s lost!»

Garet Jax was gliding forward across the ledge to where the Jachyra had stopped. «Take the Valeman into the cavern and find the well, Gnome. Do it when the creature comes for me. Do what you have come here to do. Remember the pledge.»

Jair was frantic. Helt, Foraker, Edain Elessedil — all lost in an effort to get him to the basin at Heaven’s Well. And now Garet Jax as well?

But it was already too late. The Jachyra screamed once and launched itself at Garet Jax, a blur of motion as it shot across the ledge rock. It leaped up against the Weapons Master, claws ripping. But the black form slipped aside as if it were no more than the shadow it resembled. The sword blade cut into the attacker — once, twice — so quickly the eye could barely follow. The Jachyra howled and slipped free, circling away for another rush.

Garet Jax wheeled, his lean face fierce, gray eyes bright with excitement. «Go, Jair Ohmsford!» he cried. «When it comes for me again — go!»

Anger and frustration tore at the Valeman as Slanter pulled him away. He would not go!

«Boy, I’m through arguing with you!» Slanter cried in fury.

Again the Jachyra attacked, and again Garet Jax sidestepped the rush, his slender sword flicking. Bill he was a fraction of a second too slow this time. The claws of the Jachyra ripped through the sleeve of his tunic and into his arm. Jair cried out, pulling free of Slanter.

Slanter spun him about and hit him. The blow caught him squarely on the chin. There was an instant of blinding light, and then everything went black.

The last thing he remembered was falling.

When he came awake again, Slanter was kneeling next to him. The Gnome had pulled him upright and into a sitting position and was shaking him roughly.

«Get up, boy! Get on your feet!»

The words were hard and filled with anger, and Jair scrambled up quickly. They were deep within the cavern now. Slanter must have carried him in. What little light there was came from cracks in the broken rock of the cavern’s roof.

The Gnome yanked him about. «What did you think you were doing back there?»

Jair was still dazed. «I couldn’t let him…

«Off to the rescue with your tricks, were you?» the other cut him short. «You don’t understand anything — you know that? You really don’t understand anything! What is it that you think we’re doing here? You think we’re playing some kind of game?» Slanter was livid. «There’s choices been made long before this about living and dying, boy! You can’t change that. You don’t have the right! All of the others — all of them — died because that was the way it had to be! That was the way they wanted it! And why do you think that was?»

The Valeman shook his head. «I…»

«Because of you! They died because they believed in what it was that you had come here to do — every last one of them! Even I would have…» He caught himself and took a deep breath. «It would have done a lot of good if you’d gone dashing to the rescue back there and gotten yourself killed, now wouldn’t it? A whole lot of sense that would have made!»

He wheeled Jair about and shoved him ahead into the cave. «Enough time’s been wasted on teaching you things you ought to know already — time we don’t have! I’m all that’s left, and I’m not going to be much help to you if the walkers find us now. The others — they were the real protectors, looking out for me as much as for you!»

The Valeman slowed and half turned. «What’s happened to Garet, Slanter?»

The other shook his head darkly. «He fights his promised battle — just as he wished.» He pushed Jair again and hurried him on. «Find your well quickly, boy. Find it and do what you came here to do. Make all of this madness count for something!»

Jair ran with him and said nothing more, his face flushed with shame. He understood the Gnome’s anger. Slanter was right. He had acted without thinking — without consideration for what the others of the little company had given up for him. His intentions might have been good, but his judgment had been poor indeed.

Ahead, the shadows fell away in a haze of graying sunlight that poured down through a massive crevice in the mountain stone. In the floor of the cavern, caught in the half–light, foul black water bubbled up from out of the rock in a broad Basin, pumped in some impossible way through thousands of feet of stone from the depths of the earth. Gathering and churning, it gushed through a slot at one end of the basin into a worn channel, then poured through — an opening in the mountain wall to tumble to the canyons below, where it began its long journey west to become the Silver River.

Gnome and Valeman slowed cautiously, eyes darting through gloom and hazy spray to the deep niches and corners of the cavern’s dark ends. Nothing moved. Only the flow of the blackened waters gave evidence of life, a terrible rush of poison that steamed and boiled as it lifted from the wellspring. All about, the stench of the Maelmord hung like a shroud.

Jair went forward once more, eyes fixed on the basin that was Heaven’s Well. How perverse that name seemed to him now as he gazed upon the fouled waters. Silver River no more, he thought dismally, and he wondered how even the magic of the old man could change it back to what it had once been. Slowly, he reached into his tunic front and his fingers closed about the tiny pouch of Silver Dust that he had carried with him all through his long journey east. He slipped the drawstrings free and peered within. The dust lay gathered, like ordinary sand.

And if it were only sand… ?

«Quit wasting time!» Slanter snapped.

Jair moved to the edge of the basin, conscious of the sludge that choked the well’s dark waters and of the reek. It could not be only sand! He swallowed against that fear, remembering Brin…

«Throw it!» Slanter cried angrily.

Jair’s hand jerked up, flinging the Silver Dust from its pouch, scattering it in a wide sweep across the surface of the fouled well. The tiny grains flew from the darkness of their container; and in the light of the cavern they seemed suddenly to sparkle and shimmer. They touched the waters and flared to life. A sheet of brilliant silver fire burst from the dark well. Jair and Slanter recoiled, shielding their eyes with their hands, blinded by the glare.

«The magic!» Jair cried.

Hissing and boiling, the waters of Heaven’s Well exploded skyward, raining down across the length and breadth of the cavern, showering the two who crouched at the basin’s walls. Then a rush of clean air seemed to spring to life, born out of the shower of water. Gnome and Valeman stared in awe and disbelief. Before them, the waters of Heaven’s Well bubbled clear and fresh from the mountain rock. The stench and the black, poisoned color were gone. The Silver River was clean once more.

Quickly, Jair took from around his neck the vision crystal and its silver chain. There was no hesitation now. He moved back to the basin and climbed to a small outcropping of rock that overlooked it. He heard again in his mind the King of the Silver River telling him what he must do if he were to save Brin.

His hand tightened on the crystal, and he stared downward into the waters of the basin. All of the weariness and pain seemed to seep away in that single instant.

He threw the crystal and the chain into the basin’s depths. There was a blinding flash of light — a flash greater than that created by the scattering of the Silver Dust — and the whole of the cavern seemed to explode in white fire. Jair dropped to his knees in fright, hearing Slanter’s harsh cry behind him, and for an instant he thought that something had gone terribly wrong. But then the light fell away into the surface of the basin’s waters, and the waters became as smooth and clear as glass.

The answer — show me the answer!

An image spread slowly across the mirrored surface, shimmering like a thing of transparency, then tightening. A tower room appeared, cavernous and flooded with musted, graying light, and there was an oppression that was almost palpable. Jair shrank from what he felt as he watched the room broaden and begin to draw him in.

And then the face of his sister appeared…

Brin Ohmsford felt the eyes looking at her, seeing all that she was and would become, then reaching to draw her close. Though wrapped within layers of magic as the power of the Ildatch built within her, she sensed the eyes and her own snapped up.

Stay from me! she howled. I am the dark child!

But that tiny part of her that the magic had not subverted knew the eyes and sought their help. Trapped thoughts broke from their shackles within her mind, fleeing like sheep from wolves that hunted, crying out and striving to reach shelter. She saw them, and the discovery filled her with fury. She reached for the scattered thoughts as they fled and she crushed them, one by one. Childhood, home, parents, friends — the disparate pieces of what she had been before she had found what she could be — she crushed them all.

Her voice found release then in a wail of anguish, and even the aged walls of the dark tower shook with the force of her keening. What had she done? There was pain within her now, brought about by the harm she had caused. A brief moment’s insight flooded through her, and she heard the echo of the Grimpond’s prophecy. It was her own death, indeed, that she had come into the Maelmord to find that she had found! But it was not the death that she had supposed. It was the death of self through her entrapment by the magic! She was destroying herself!

But even in the horror of that realization, she could not release the Ildatch. She was caught up in the feel of the magic’s power as it built and expanded like flood waters gathering. Before her, she held the book in a death grip, hearing its dispassionate voice whisper in encouragement and promise. Her pain was forgotten. The eyes were swept away. There was only the voice. She listened to its words, unable not to, and the world began to open up before her…

At the basin of Heaven’s Well, Jair staggered back from the vision of his sister. Was it truly Brin whom he had seen? Horror flooded through him as he forced himself to view again the apparition that the waters had shown him. It was his sister, but twisted into a thing barely recognizable — a perversion of the human being she had once been. She was lost to herself — just as the King of the Silver River had said she would be.

And Allanon! Where was Allanon? Where was Rone? Had they failed her as he had failed her by reaching Heaven’s Well too late?

Tears streaked Jair Ohmsford’s face. It had come to pass as the old man had warned that it would — everything as he had foreseen. A terrible desperation filled the Valeman. He was all that was left. Allanon, Brin, Rone, the little company from Culhaven, all were gone.

«Boy, what is it that you do?» he heard Slanter call to him «Get back from there and use what sense…»

Jair closed his ears and his mind to the rest of what the Gnome would have told him, his eyes fixing once more on the apparition in the basin’s waters. It was Brin that he saw there, however twisted. It was Brin, gone down into the Maelmord, drawn to the book of the Ildatch, subverted somehow by the magic she had come to destroy.

And he must go to her. Even if it were too late, he must try to help her.

He came to his feet again, remembering the final gift of the King of the Silver River. «Once only shall the magic of your wishsong be used to create not illusion, but reality.»

He brushed aside the confusion, horror, fear, and despair, and he sang. The music of the wishsong rose up in the stillness of the cavern, flooding the silence and drowning the sudden cries of protest that broke from Slanter’s throat. Pain and weariness faded into yesterday as.he cried out for the wish. The brilliant white light of the basin waters shimmered again in the air above Heaven’s Well, and again the spray geysered skyward.

Slanter staggered away, blinded and deafened. When he finally looked back again, Jair Ohmsford had disappeared into the light.