The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

by Terry Brooks

  Shadea kicked his body aside and turned back to Grianne. Hands lifting, she attacked anew, sending a hail of Druid Fire into her enemy. Grianne was able to fight off the attack, but only barely. The force of it knocked her backwards once more, and she struggled to keep her feet as she sought to defend herself, trying in vain to mount a counterattack.

  She felt her defenses crumbling. She felt the heat of the Druid Fire beginning to break through.

  Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kermadec, his great body bloodied and steaming, lurch to his feet. One hand grasped a spear he had taken from one of his Gnome attackers. Bracing himself against the wall, he gripped the spear in one huge fist, set himself, and heaved it at Shadea.

  Too late the sorceress realized the danger. She wheeled to protect herself, but the spear caught her in the chest and drove her back against the wall, the force of the throw pinning her fast. Her body jerked and her head snapped back. Her eyes went wide with shock and disbelief. She screamed and flailed, trying to break free. She sprayed Druid Fire everywhere. But the blow was fatal, and a moment later she collapsed and did not move again.

  The remaining Gnome Hunters were already in flight, disappearing down the hallway as fast as they could manage. Grianne stood alone among the wounded and the dead. She lowered her hands, dispersed the magic she had summoned to defend herself, and stared at Shadea a’Ru. The sorceress was staring back at her, eyes blank and unseeing, face twisted in a death mask. Grianne looked away, sickened, then walked quickly over to Kermadec. The big Rock Troll slid down the wall into a sitting position, his chin sunk on his chest. Blood and burned patches were everywhere on his massive body.

  She knelt before him and gently raised his head. “Kermadec?” she whispered. “Can you hear me?”

  His eyes opened and fixed on her. “Mistress,” he replied, his voice thin and reedy. “I told you they were vipers.”

  She bent forward and kissed his face, and then cradled him against her and whispered, “You great bear.”

  THIRTY

  Pen Ohmsford, his parents, Khyber Elessedil, and Tagwen descended through the corridors of Paranor to the furnace room, then back down along the hidden passageway that led to the outside world. They encountered no one on their way. The silence of the Druid’s Keep was deep and pervasive and gave the false impression that it was deserted save for them.

  But once they were outside, they heard the sounds of the battle being fought at the north wall, and although they hadn’t seen the Trolls arrive, they could pretty well guess at what was happening.

  “That will give Shadea something else to think about!” Tagwen grunted, a smile on his bearded face. “Kermadec won’t rest until he has the Ard Rhys safely out of there!”

  That knowledge seemed to give him some sense of peace, and he quit muttering about how he should be back in the north tower trying to help her. Pen was grateful for that because, given that he was the only one sympathetic enough to permit it, most of the muttering was being done in his ear. While he appreciated Tagwen’s concern for his mistress, he was struggling with his own problems.

  Pen was beginning to contemplate in some detail the task that lay ahead of him. He had thought he would be safely out of danger once he returned to Paranor with his aunt, so the news that he must go off and find a changeling demon and confront it with the darkwand had come as an unpleasant surprise. Once again, he was being asked to do something without being told exactly how he was supposed to do it. Only this time, he was being asked to confront a very dangerous creature. It was one thing to go into the Forbidding and bring back the Ard Rhys, who was ready and willing to come. It was another to force a demon to go back into a place it did not wish to go.

  At least he had his parents to help him. And Khyber, as well. They were much more self-possessed and experienced than he was. His father and Khyber had the use of magic, as well. That should give them an edge once they found the demon. Still, it was his responsibility to use the darkwand to return the demon to the Forbidding, and no amount of reassurance could disguise the fact that he didn’t know how to do that.

  As they moved away from the base of the cliffs on which Paranor rested, slipping quickly and quietly into the forest toward Swift Sure, Pen found himself wondering what demons were like. He hadn’t really seen any in the Forbidding, unless you counted Weka Dart, and he didn’t. The Ulk Bog didn’t seem like a demon to him; he envisioned demons as being something much more fearsome and threatening.

  In any case, he didn’t know what he was going to do once he met a real one, but he thought it might be a good idea to figure out something before the moment arrived.

  They passed through the trees to the clearing where Swift Sure was tethered, climbed up the rope ladder, and set about releasing the anchor ropes. His parents did most of the work, his mother taking the helm and his father working the lines. In minutes they were airborne, lifting away from the woods, rising swiftly into the air. He stood with Tagwen and Khyber at the railing and looked down on Paranor. The north wall of the Druid’s Keep was under attack by huge numbers of Rock Trolls, their size and build unmistakable from any height. The Trolls were spread out all along the wall, but the greatest number were bunched together at the gates, and from the surge pushing inward it seemed clear that the gates had been taken.

  Then Swift Sure was moving away too rapidly for them to follow the action below any further, and Bek was calling out to Khyber as he moved toward the ship’s bow. The trio moved away from the railing in response and joined the elder Ohmsford in front of the foremast.

  “Will you use the Elfstones now?” he asked Khyber.

  “What am I looking for?” She already had the Stones out and was holding them in the palm of her hand. “I don’t know what a demon looks like. I don’t know what sort of creature I ought to tell the Stones to find.”

  Perplexed by the problem, they stared at each other in silence for a moment. None of them, after all, had ever seen a demon or had any clear idea of what one looked like. If they didn’t know what they were looking for, how were they supposed to find it?

  Then Pen said, “Try holding on to the staff, Khyber. It helped me find Grianne in the Forbidding. If its purpose now is to find the demon, it might help you here.”

  He handed her the darkwand, which she took from him and held out in front of her in one hand while gripping the Elfstones in the other, summoning their magic. The moments crept by. Nothing happened.

  “It isn’t working,” she said, a hint of panic in her dark eyes.

  Pen took the staff back from her. “I guess it only responds to me. Let me try. If it showed me how to find Grianne, it should show me how to find the demon, as well.”

  He gripped the darkwand and turned his thoughts to the demon and the Forbidding. Instantly, the runes began to brighten all up and down the length of the staff, their glow soft at first and then building in intensity. When they began to dance off the staff like fireflies, Pen said quickly, “Now, Khyber! Put your hand over mine and use the Elfstones!”

  She did so, gripping the staff with her left hand and lifting her right fist to call forth the magic. The response was immediate. The Elfstones brightened like blue fire, their light flooding from between her fingers in brilliant shards and exploding away toward the southwest. The light showed miles and miles of plains and hills, green expanses of grasslands and farms, then tightened to a point where a single airship sailed steadily west across the landscape. The craft was huge, a great warship, its decks thick with the black-and-silver uniforms of the Federation but stripped of any visible weapons. The vision tightened and settled on one man, an imposing patriarch with flowing white hair and a strong, imperious face, who stood in the pilot box as if to oversee its workings, his arms folded across his chest as he stared off into the distance where the thick forests of the Westland spread away from the broad, gleaming surface of a sunlit lake.

  Seconds later, the image flared once and went dark, and the magic faded.

 
; “Sen Dunsidan,” Tagwen declared, loathing in his voice. Then he realized the implications of what that meant. “Shades!” he breathed, his face going pale.

  “You’re sure about this?” Bek asked, putting a hand on the Dwarf’s broad shoulder.

  Tagwen nodded firmly. “There’s no mistaking him. He’s come to Paranor enough times that I should know. Prime Minister of the Federation, but a snake of the first order. I would have been willing to bet everything I own that he was Shadea’s ally in sending the Ard Rhys into the Forbidding. He’s always hated her, ever since she manipulated him as the Ilse Witch. She made it up to him, but he never forgave her. He isn’t the type to forgive anyone.”

  “But now he’s the demon?” Rue interrupted. “What’s going on?”

  Bek shook his head. “The demon crossed over when Grianne was sent into the Forbidding. It must have taken another form right away. It probably switched identities more than once. Now it pretends to be Sen Dunsidan. A good choice; it gives the demon tremendous power.”

  “It’s going into the Westland,” Khyber said. “That lake was the Myrian and those forests the Tirfing. It must think it’s found a way to destroy the Ellcrys.”

  Bek nodded. “Flying west below Callahorn, away from the Prekkendorran and the normal routes of travel. It’s trying to sneak in from below. It knows it will be seen eventually, but perhaps not right away. It must have a plan for what it will do when the Elves intercept it. Negotiation first, perhaps, then force if all else fails. That warship looks formidable, even if it doesn’t seem to be carrying any weapons. There must be something aboard that will allow the demon to destroy the Ellcrys.”

  “The Elves will never let it get close enough to threaten the tree,” Khyber insisted.

  “Not if they know it is a demon. But as Sen Dunsidan, it will get closer than it would otherwise. At any rate, we have to stop it. If we fly all night, we should intercept it by dawn.”

  “I might remind you,” said Rue Meridian, who had come up quietly behind them while they were discussing what to do, “that we don’t have any weapons on this ship except for a pair of rail slings. How are we supposed to intercept anything?”

  Pen’s father didn’t seem to have an answer to that, saying that he would think about it.

  Bek went back with Rue into the pilot box, leaving Pen with Khyber and Tagwen. Unable to get past his susceptibility to airsickness even on the calmest of days, the Dwarf was already starting to look a little green, and after grunting something about taking a nap he disappeared below. Pen talked with Khyber for a time, catching up on what had happened to her after he had gone into the Forbidding and telling her in turn what he had seen there. When they were finished with that, neither one wanted to talk about much of anything. They were exhausted from their struggles and in need of nourishment and rest. Khyber left to find something for them to eat, and Pen moved over to the bow and settled in.

  Looking out over the countryside, he thought anew about what he was going to do when they found that warship and its demon commander. He was aware of how uncertain things were becoming once again, and the particulars of his own role in what lay ahead were the most nebulous of all. He had survived the Forbidding and a good deal more, but that didn’t make him feel any better about his chances. He wished he had some idea of how the darkwand would work on the demon, but there was no one to tell him and no way for him to find out until the moment he was using it. He wasn’t very reassured.

  He found himself thinking about his aunt. Events at Paranor were in all likelihood already over. She had either regained control of the Druid order or she was dead. He didn’t want to think like that, but he knew it was true. Thinking of what they had left her to face made him sick at heart. She seemed so frail and so vulnerable that he couldn’t conceive of her surviving a battle with the rebel Druids. He told himself that she had survived in the Forbidding, so she might find a way to survive at Paranor. It would have been better, though, if they could have stayed to help. It would have been better if she weren’t so alone.

  Khyber returned with food and drink, and after Pen had consumed both, he went below and slept. His sleep was deep and untroubled until sometime around midnight, when he dreamed of a dark presence enfolding him so tightly that he couldn’t breathe, and he woke sweating with fear.

  After that, he didn’t sleep at all.

  It was two hours past dawn when the Moric saw the other airship approaching. By then, the Zolomach had turned north along the silver ribbon of the Mermidon and was approaching the Valley of Rhenn on a day that was bright and clear and warm. The Moric didn’t care what kind of day it was; it only cared that it was to be the last day it would have to spend in an unpleasant world. It hated the brightness and the smells. It hated the humans it was forced to live among. It was worse aboard this airship, where it was in proximity to them all the time and could not escape to its sewer refuge. Worse still, it had assumed the identity of a human who was never left alone for more than a few moments, even when sleeping.

  It couldn’t change the conditions of this world quickly enough.

  But time was running out on the Moric. In spite of its success in avoiding detection by Elven airships, the atmosphere aboard this vessel was poisonous. Two days earlier, the Free-born army had overrun the Federation defensive lines on the Prekkendorran and sent that once seemingly invincible force fleeing back into the deep Southland in a reprise of what the Federation had done to the Elves some days earlier. Matters had turned about completely, and there was no changing them back. All attempts at rallying the remnants of the battered Southland army had failed, and the war, after decades of indecision, had turned decisively in favor of the allied Free-born. The Coalition Council was furious with Sen Dunsidan and had summoned him to appear before it, but the Moric was no fool. It knew, as Sen Dunsidan would have known, what that summoning meant.

  So it simply ignored the Council, boarded the Zolomach, and set sail for Arborlon. Its own plans were settled and in no way affected by anything that had happened on the Prekkendorran. Those aboard ship knew of their army’s defeat, but had been assured that what they were doing would carry the war to the Elves and turn things around. They accepted that because they were soldiers and because they had no choice. No one wanted to question Sen Dunsidan, even when he was in disfavor with the Coalition Council. Sen Dunsidan had come back before; there was no reason to think he would not come back again.

  They had been forced to travel cautiously, choosing a route that would keep them from being spotted by Free-born airships and would get them close enough to Arborlon and the Ellcrys that the Moric could implement its plan to get closer still. In a way, the defeat of the Federation army on the Prekkendorran had made its task easier. When finally intercepted by the Elves, the demon would say, in its guise as Sen Dunsidan, that it had come to discuss a plan for peace, to accede to conditions that would assure that the war would not resume. It would ask permission to fly to Arborlon to speak to the Elven High Council. It would give assurances that no treachery was intended and offer hostages as a show of good faith. It would demand that they let it remain aboard the Zolomach because, in the face of so many of the enemy, no right-thinking commander would leave the only protection available. The Elves would accept his condition. The Federation ship would display no weapons and pose no visible threat. They would feel confident that they could deal with anything the Prime Minister might attempt.

  If persuasion failed to win them over, then the demon would use the fire launcher, which was concealed inside what appeared to be a storage cabin on the foredeck. In the event of an attack, the front section of the cabin could be dropped away and the weapon armed and fired in seconds. The Elven airships would be burned out of the sky before they knew what was happening, and the Zolomach would continue on its way. Once within range of the Ellcrys, a single direct hit was all it would take. It would be over before the Elves had a chance to do anything to stop it. In spite of having the fire launcher, the Zolomach would be des
troyed and its crew killed in reprisal, but the demon would escape because it would shed Sen Dunsidan’s skin and take a new form. In the chaos, it would slip over the side of the ship. Once it was on the ground, they would never find it.

  But now an unfamiliar airship was approaching, and they were still too far away from Arborlon for it to be an Elven vessel. It was flying alone, as well, which suggested it had another purpose. The demon watched it grow larger, closing steadily, in no apparent hurry and with no indication that it meant any harm.

  “Captain?” the demon said to the tall man on his right. “What ship is this?”

  The Zolomach’s Captain, who had been studying the vessel through his spyglass, shook his head. “No ship I know. Not a ship of the line. Not a warship.” He looked again. “Wait. Her insignia is of a burning torch on a field of black.” He trailed off. “She’s a Druid ship.”

  The Moric stiffened. Shadea a’Ru? Come looking for him out here? The idea seemed preposterous. “Who’s aboard her? Tell me what you see.”

  The Captain put the spyglass up again and studied the ship. “Two Druids standing at the bow. A pilot. Someone else. A boy, it looks like.”

  “Let me see.”

  The demon took the spyglass from the Captain and scanned the decks of the approaching airship. It was just as the Captain had said—four figures were visible on deck and no one else. No railguns were mounted, and no other weapons were to be seen. The demon lowered the spyglass and made a quick scan of the decks of the Zolomach, reassured by the presence of Federation soldiers at every turn. There was no reason to be worried.

  Still, it was uneasy. What was a Druid airship doing way out there by itself? It was not there by chance. The encounter was not a coincidence.

  “They’re signaling to us,” the Captain advised.

  The demon glanced over at him in confusion. “Signaling?”