by Terry Brooks
Quickening stepped forward beside Morgan, her beautiful face strangely calm, her hands steady on his arm.
Then Walker Boh cast aside his torch and hurled a fistful of black powder into the horde of rats. Fire exploded everywhere, and the first rank was incinerated. But there were hundreds more behind that one, thousands of churning dark bodies. Claws scraped madly on the rocks, seeking to find a grip. Teeth and sightless eyes gleamed. The rats came on.
“Walker!” Morgan cried out desperately and shoved Quickening behind him.
But it wasn’t the Dark Uncle who responded to Morgan’s plea, or Pe Ell, or Horner Dees, or even Quickening. It was Cansman, the tunesmith.
He rushed forward, pushing past Morgan and Quickening, coming up beside Walker just as the rats burst through the tunnel opening onto the narrow ledge. Lifting his wondrous voice, he began to sing. It was a song that was different than any they had ever heard; it scraped like the rub of metal on stone, shrieked like the tearing of wood, and broke through the thunder of the ocean and the squeal of the rats to fill the cavern with its sound.
“Come to me!” Quickening cried out to the rest of them.
They bunched close at once, even Pe Ell, flattening themselves against one another as the tunesmith continued to sing. The rats poured out of the tunnel and swept toward them in a wave of struggling bodies. But then the wave split apart, flowing to either side of the tunesmith, passing by without touching any of them. Something in Carisman’s song was turning them away. They twisted to either side, a churning mass. Onward they scrambled, heedless of everything, whether fleeing or being called it was impossible to tell, and tumbled into the sea.
Moments later, the last of them had been swallowed up or swept away. Carisman went still, then collapsed into Morgan’s arms. The Highlander propped him up, and Quickening wiped cold seawater onto his face with the sleeve of her tunic. The others glanced about breathlessly, cautiously, scanning the dark tunnel opening, the empty rock, the waters of the sea.
“It worked,” Carisman whispered in surprise as his eyes fluttered open again. “Did you see? It worked!” He struggled up and seized Quickening jubilantly by the arms. “I’d read something about it once, or heard about it maybe, but I had never thought I would…I mean, I had never tried such a thing before! Never! It was a cat song, Lady! A cat song! I didn’t know what else to do, so I made those horrid rodents think we were giant cats!”
Everyone stared in disbelief. Only then did Morgan Leah appreciate how truly miraculous their escape had been.
XX
With the destruction of the rats, they were able to retrace their steps through the tunnel that had brought them to the underground cavern, climb back into the sewers of Eldwist, climb from there to the level of tunnels above, and finally reach the streets of the city. It was already growing dark, and they hurried quickly through the descending gloom to gain the safety of their nighttime refuge. They only just succeeded. The Rake appeared almost at once, an invisible presence beyond the walls of the building, its armored legs scraping across the stone below, searching for them still. They sat huddled silently in the dark listening to it hunt until it had gone. Walker said he thought the creature could track by smell, only the rain and the number of trails they had left was confusing it. Sooner or later it would figure out where they were hiding.
Exhausted and aching and shaken by what had befallen them, they ate their dinner in silence and went quickly off to sleep.
The next morning Pe Ell, who following their escape from the tunnels had descended into a mood so black that no one dared approach him, announced that he was going out on his own.
“There are too many of us stumbling about to ever find anything,” he declared, his voice calm and expressionless, his narrow face unreadable. He spoke to Quickening, as if only she mattered. “If there truly is a Stone King, he knows by now that we are here. This is his city; he can hide in it forever if he chooses. The only way to find him is to catch him off guard, sneak up on him, and surprise him. There will be none of that if we continue to hunt like a pack of dogs.”
Morgan started to intervene, but Walker’s fingers closed about his arm like iron bands.
Pe Ell glanced around. “The rest of you can keep bumbling about as long as you wish. But you’ll do it without me. I’ve spent enough time shepherding you around. I should have gone off on my own from the first. If I had, this business would be finished by now.” He turned back to Quickening. “When I have found Uhl Belk and the Black Elfstone, I will come back for you.” He paused, meeting her gaze squarely. “If you are still alive.”
He strode past them contemptuously and disappeared down the hall. His boots thudded softly on the stairs and faded into silence.
Horner Dees spit. “We’re well rid of that one,” he muttered.
“He is correct, though,” Walker Boh said, and they all turned to look at him. “In one respect at least. We must divide ourselves up into groups if we are ever to complete this search. The city is too large, and we are too easy to avoid while we stay together.”
“Two groups then,” Dees agreed, nodding his shaggy head. “No one goes out alone.”
“Pe Ell doesn’t seem worried about hunting alone,” Morgan noted.
“He’s a predator, sure enough,” Dees replied. He looked at Quickening speculatively. “How about it, girl? Does he have any chance of finding Belk and the Elfstone on his own?”
But Quickening only said, “He will return.”
They seated themselves to work out a strategy, a method by which the city could be searched from end to end. The buildings ran mostly north of where they were concealed, so it was decided to divide Eldwist in two with one group taking the east half and the other the west. The search would concentrate on the buildings and streets, not the tunnels, if nothing were found aboveground, they would change their approach.
“Pe Ell may be wrong when he says that the Stone King must know we are here,” Quickening said in closing. She brought her slender fingers up in a quick, birdlike movement. “We are insignificant in his eyes, and he may not yet have even noticed us. We are the reason he keeps the Rake in service. Besides, the Maw Grint occupies his time.”
“How do we divide ourselves up?” Carisman asked.
“You will go with me,” Quickening answered at once. “And Walker Boh.”
Morgan was surprised. He had expected her to choose him. The disappointment he felt cut deeply. He started to dispute her choice, but her black eyes fixed him with such intensity that he went instantly still. Whatever her reasons for making this decision, she did not want it questioned.
“That leaves you and me, Highlander,” Horner Dees grunted and clapped one heavy hand on Morgan’s shoulder. “Think we can manage to disappoint Pe Ell and keep our skins whole?”
His sudden laugh was so infectious that Morgan found himself smiling in response. “I’d bet on it,” he replied.
They gathered up their gear and went down into the street. Sheets of gloom draped the buildings, hung from skies thick with clouds and mist. The air was damp and chill, and their breath exhaled in a haze of white. They wished each other well and began moving off in separate directions, Morgan and Horner Dees going west, Quickening, Walker, and Carisman east.
“Take care of yourself, Morgan,” Quickening whispered, her exquisite face a mix of shadow and light beneath the sweep of her silver hair. She touched him softly on the shoulder and hurried after Walker Boh.
“Tra-la-la-la, a-hunting we will go!” Carisman sang merrily as they disappeared.
Rain began to fall in a steady drizzle. Morgan and Horner Dees slogged ahead with their cloaks pulled tightly about their shoulders and their heads bent. They had agreed that they would follow the street to its end, until they were at the edge of the city, then turn north to track the peninsula’s shoreline. There had been little enough found within the core of the city; perhaps there was something outside—particularly if the Stone King’s magic was ineffective against wat
er. They kept to the walkways and glanced cautiously down the darkened corridors of the side-streets they passed. Rainwater collected on the city’s stone skin in puddles and streams, shimmering darkly in the gloom. Seabirds huddled in nooks and crevices, waiting out the storm. In the shadows, nothing moved.
It was nearing midmorning when they reached the Tiderace, the land ending in cliffs which dropped hundreds of feet into the sea. Craggy out-croppings of rock rose out of the churning waters, worn and pitted. Waves crashed against the cliffs, the sound of their pounding mixing with the wind as it swept off the water in a rising howl. Morgan and Dees melted back into the shelter of the outer buildings, seeking to protect themselves. Rain and ocean spray soaked them quickly through, and they were soon shivering beneath their clothes. For two hours they skirted the city’s western boundaries without finding anything. By midday, when they stopped to eat, they were disgruntled and worn.
“There’s nothing to be found out here, Highlander,” Dees observed, chewing on a bit of dried beef—his last. “Just the sea and the wind and those confounded birds, shrieking and calling like madwomen.”
Morgan nodded without answering. He was trying to decide whether he could eat a seabird if he had to. Their food supplies were almost exhausted. Soon they would be forced to hunt. What else was there besides those birds? Fish, he decided firmly. The birds looked too rangy and tough.
“You miss the Highlands?” Dees asked him suddenly.
“Sometimes.” He thought about his home and smiled faintly. “All the time.”
“Me, too, and I haven’t seen them in years. Thought they were the most beautiful piece of work nature ever made. I liked how they made me feel when I was in them.”
“Carisman said he liked it there, too. He said he liked the quiet.”
“The quiet. Yes, I remember how quiet it was in those hills.” They had found shelter in a building’s shadowed entry. The big man shifted himself away from a widening stain where the rain had trickled down the wall and collected on the steps where they were seated, backs to the wall, facing out into the weather.
He leaned forward. “Let me tell you something,” he said softly. “I know this fellow, Pe Ell.”
Morgan looked over, intrigued. “From where?”
“From before. Long before. Almost twenty years. He was just a kid then; I was already old.” Dees chuckled darkly. “Some kid. A killer even then. An assassin right from the beginning—as if that was what he was born to be and he couldn’t ever be anything else but.” He shook his grizzled head. “I knew him. I knew it was bad luck if you crossed him.”
“Did you?”
“Cross him? Me? No, not me. I know well enough who to stand up to and who to back away from. Always have. That’s how I’ve stayed alive. Pe Ell is the kind who once he takes a dislike to you will keep coming till you’re dead. Doesn’t matter how long it takes him or how he gets the job done. He’ll just keep at it.” He pointed at Morgan. “You better understand something. I don’t know what he’s doing here. I don’t know why the girl brought him. But he’s no friend to any of you. You know what he is? He’s a Federation assassin. Their best, in fact. He’s Rimmer Dall’s favorite boy.”
Morgan froze, the blood draining from his face. “That can’t be.”
“Can and is,” Dees said emphatically. “Unless things have changed from how they used to be, and I doubt they have.”
Morgan shook his head in disbelief. “How do you know all this, Horner?”
Horner Dees smiled, a wide, hungry grin. “Funny thing about that. I remember him even though he doesn’t remember me. I can see it in his eyes. He’s trying to figure out what it is I know that he doesn’t. Have you seen the way he looks at me? Trying to figure it out. Been too long, I guess. He’s killed too many men, has too many faces in his past to remember many of them. Me, I been gone a long time. I don’t have so many ghosts to worry about.” He paused. “Truth is, Highlander, I was one of them myself.”
“One of them?” Morgan asked quietly.
The other gave a sharp laugh, like a bark. “I was with the Federation! I tracked for them!”
As quick as that Morgan Leah’s perception of Horner Dees changed. The big, bearish fellow was no longer just a gruff, old Tracker whose best days were behind him; he was no longer even a friend. Morgan started to back away and then realized there was nowhere to back to. He reached for his broadsword.
“Highlander!” Dees snapped, freezing him. The big man clenched one massive fist, then relaxed it. “Like I said, that was long ago. I been gone from those people twenty years. Settle back. You haven’t any reason to fear me.”
He placed his hands in his lap, palms up. “Anyway, that’s how I came to see the Highlands, believe it or not—in the service of the Federation. I was tracking Dwarf rebels for them, hunting the Rainbow Lake and Silver River country. Never found much. Dwarves are like foxes; they go to ground quick as a wink when they know they’re being hunted.” He smiled unexpectedly. “I didn’t try very hard in any case. It was a worthless sort of job.”
Morgan released his grip on the broadsword and sat back again.
“I was with them long enough to find out about Pe Ell,” the other went on, and now his eyes were distant and troubled. “I knew most of what was happening back men. Rimmer Dall had me slated to be a Seeker. Can you imagine? Me? I thought that wolf’s head stuff was nonsense. But I learned about Pe Ell while Dall was working on me. Saw him come and go once, when he didn’t know it. Dall arranged for me to see because he liked putting one over on Pe Ell. It was a sort of game with the two of them, each trying to show up the other. Anyway, I saw him and heard what he did. A few others heard things, too. Everyone knew to stay away from him.”
He sighed. “Just a little while after that, I quit the bunch of them. Left when no one was looking, came north through the Eastland, traveled about until I reached Ramping Steep, and decided that was where I’d live. Away from the madness south, the Federation, the Seekers, all of it.”
“All of it?” Morgan repeated doubtfully, still trying to decide what to make of Horner Dees. “Even the Shadowen?”
Dees blinked. “What do you know of the Shadowen, Morgan Leah?”
Morgan leaned forward. Windblown mist had left Horner’s face damp and shining, and droplets of water clung to his hair and beard. “I want to know something from you first. Why are you telling me all this?”
The other’s smile was strangely gentle. “Because I want you to know about Pe Ell, and you can’t know about him without knowing about me. I like you, Highlander. You remind me a little of myself when I was your age—kind of reckless and headstrong, not afraid of anything. I don’t want there to be secrets about me that might come out in a bad way. Like if Pe Ell should remember who I am. I want you for a friend and ally. I don’t trust anyone else.”
Morgan studied him wordlessly for a moment. “You might do better with someone else.”
“I’ll chance it. Now, bow about it? I’ve answered your question. You tell me how you know about the Shadowen.”
Morgan drew up his knees and hugged them to his chest, making up his mind. Finally, he said, “My best friend was a Dwarf named Steff. He was with the Resistance. The woman he loved was a Shadowen, and she killed him. I killed her.”
Horner Dees arched his eyebrows quizzically. “I was given to understand that nothing but magic could kill those things.”
Morgan reached down and drew out the shattered end of the Sword of Leah. “There was magic in this Sword once,” he said. “Allanon put it there himself—three hundred years ago. I broke it during a battle with the Shadowen in Tyrsis before the start of all this. Even so, there was still enough magic left to avenge Steff and save myself.” He studied the blade speculatively, hefted it, waited in vain to feel its warmth, then looked back at Dees. “Maybe there’s still some. Anyway, that’s why Quickening brought me along. This Sword. She said there was a chance it could be restored.”
Horner Dees frown
ed. “Are you to use it against Belk then?”
“I don’t know,” Morgan admitted. “I haven’t been told anything except that it could be made whole again.” He slipped the broken blade back into its scabbard. “Promises,” he said and sighed.
“She seems like the kind who keeps hers,” the other observed after a moment’s thought. “Magic to find magic. Magic to prevail over magic. Us against the Stone King.” He shook his head. “It’s too complicated for me. You just be sure you remember what I said about Pe Ell You can’t turn your back on him. And you mustn’t go up against him either. You leave that to me.”
“You?” Morgan declared in surprise.
“That’s right. Me. Or Walker Boh. One-armed or not, he’s a match for Pe Ell or I’ve misjudged him completely. You concentrate on keeping the girl safe.” He paused. “Shouldn’t be too hardy considering how you feel about each other.”
Morgan flushed in spite of himself. “It’s mostly me that’s feeling anything,” he muttered awkwardly.
“She’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” the old man said, smiling at the other’s discomfort. “I don’t know what she is, human or elemental or what, but she can charm the boots right off you. She looks at you, that face softens, she speaks the way she does, and you’ll do anything for her. I should know. I wasn’t ever going to come back to this place and here I am. She’s done it to all of us.”
Morgan nodded. “Even to Pe Ell He’s as much hers as the rest of us.”
But Dees shook his head. “I don’t know, Highlander. You look careful next chance you get. He’s hers, but he isn’t. She walks a fine line with that one. He could turn quick as a cat. That’s why I tell you to look after her. You remember what he is. He’s not here to do us any favors. He’s here for himself. Sooner or later, he’ll revert to form.”