[Magic Kingdom of Landover 05] - Witches' Brew

by Terry Brooks

  He walked to the bookcase that served as a hidden doorway to the room that concealed the Druid Histories and triggered its release. He entered and looked around. The room was filled with huge leather-bound books. Row after row, they sat in numbered, ordered sequence, reservoirs of knowledge, of all the lore the Druids had gathered since the time of the First Council from the ages of fairy, Man, and the Great Wars. Each page of each book was crammed with information gained and recorded, some of it understood, some of it a mystery still, all that remained of science and magic past and present. Much of what was written in these books was in Kahle’s own hand, the words painstakingly inscribed, line by line, for more than forty years. Their recordings were the old man’s special pride, the summation of his life’s work, the accomplishment he favored most.

  He crossed to the nearest bank of shelves, took a deep breath, and opened the drawstrings to Bremen’s leather pouch. He mistrusted all magic, but there was no other choice. Besides, Bremen would never mislead him. What mattered to both was the preservation of the Histories. They must survive him, as they were intended to. They must survive them all.

  He took a generous handful of the glittering silver dust he found inside the pouch and threw it across one section of the books. Instantly, the entire wall on which the books were housed began to shimmer, taking on the look of a mirage in deep summer heat. Kahle hesitated, then threw more of the dust across the liquid curtain. The shelves and books disappeared. He moved on quickly then, using handfuls of the dust on each set of shelves, each section of books, watching them shimmer and fade away.

  Moments later, the Druid Histories had vanished completely. All that remained was a room with four blank walls and a long reading table at its center.

  Kahle Rese nodded in satisfaction. The Histories were safe now. Even if the room was discovered, its contents would remain concealed. It was as much as he could hope for.

  He walked back through the door, suddenly weary. There was a scraping at the library door as unwieldly claws tried to fasten on the handle and turn it. Kahle turned and carefully closed the bookcase door. He shoved the nearly empty leather pouch in the pocket of his robe, walked to his desk, and stood there. He had no weapons. He had no place to run. There was nothing to do but wait.

  Heavy bodies threw themselves against the door from without, splintering it. A second later it gave way, crashing open against the wall. Three crook-backed beasts slouched into the room, red eyes narrow and hateful as they fixed on him. He faced them without flinching as they approached.

  The closest held a short spear. Something in the bearing of the man before him infuriated him. When he was right on top of Kahle Rese, he drove the spear through his chest and killed him instantly.

  When it was finished, when all who remained of the guards had been hunted down and slaughtered, the Druids who had survived were herded from their hiding places into the Assembly and made to fall upon their knees, ringed by the monsters who had undone them. Athabasca was found, still alive, and brought to stand before the Skull Bearer. The creature stared at the imposing, white-haired First Druid, then ordered him to bow down and acknowledge him as master. When Athabasca refused, proud and disdainful even in defeat, the creature seized him by his neck, looked into his frightened eyes, and burned them out with fire from his own.

  As Athabasca lay writhing in agony on the stone floor, a sudden hush fell over the Assembly. The hissing and chittering died away. The scraping of claws and grinding of teeth faded. A silence descended, dark and foreboding, and all eyes were drawn to the hall’s main entry, where the heavy double doors hung shattered and broken from their bindings.

  There, within the jagged opening, the shadows seemed to come together, a coalescing of darkness that slowly took shape and grew into a tall, robed figure that did not stand upon the floor as normal men, but hung above it in midair, as light and insubstantial as smoke. A chill permeated the air of the Assembly at its coming, a cold that swept through the chamber and penetrated to the bones of the captured Druids. One by one their captors dropped to their knees, heads bowed, voices a rough murmur.

  “Master, Master.”

  The Warlock Lord looked down upon the beaten Druids and was filled with satisfaction. They were his, now. Paranor was his. Revenge was at hand, after all this time.

  He brought his creatures back to their feet, then stretched his cloaked arm toward Athabasca. Unable to help himself, blinded and in pain, the First Druid was jerked upright as if by invisible wires. He hung above the floor, above the other Druids, crying out in terror. The Warlock Lord made a twisting motion, and the First Druid went ominously still. A second twisting motion, and the First Druid began to chant in terrible, croaking agony, “Master, Master, Master.” The Druids huddled about him turned their eyes away in shame and rage. Some wept. The massed creatures of the Warlock Lord hissed with pleasure and approval, lifting their clawed limbs in salute.

  Then the Warlock Lord nodded, and the Skull Bearer struck with terrible swiftness, tearing Athabasca’s heart from his chest while he still lived. The First Druid threw back his head and shrieked as his chest exploded, then slumped forward and died.

  For several long moments, the Warlock Lord held him suspended over his fellows like a rag doll, the blood draining from his body. He swung him this way and that, back and forth, and finally let him drop to the stone in a sodden mass of ruined flesh and bone.

  Then he had all the captured Druids taken from the Assembly, herded like cattle to the deepest regions of Paranor’s cellars, and walled away alive.

  As the last of their screams died into silence, he went up through the stairways and corridors of the Keep in search of the Druid Histories. He had destroyed the Druids; now he must destroy their lore. Or take with him what he could use. He went swiftly now, for already there were stirrings from somewhere down with the Keep’s bottomless well that hinted of magic coming awake in response to his presence. In his own domain, he was a match for anything. Here, within the haven of his greatest enemies, he might not be. He found the library and searched it through. He uncovered the bookcase that opened on the hidden chamber beyond, but that chamber was empty. There was magic in use, he sensed, but he could not determine its origin or purpose. Of the Histories, there was no sign.

  From within the depths of the Druid Well, the stirrings grew stronger. Something had been set loose in response to his coming, and it was rising to seek him out. He was disturbed that this should be, that power of this sort should be set at watch to challenge him. It could not have originated with these pitiful mortals he had so easily subdued. They were no longer able to invoke such power. It must have come instead from the one who had penetrated his domain so recently, the one his creatures had tracked: the Druid Bremen.

  He went back down to the Assembly, anxious to be gone now as swiftly as possible, his purpose here accomplished. He had the three who had betrayed Paranor brought before him. He did not speak to them with words, for they were not worthy of this, but let his thoughts speak for him. They cringed and prostrated themselves like sheep, poor foolish creatures who would be more than they were able.

  “Master!” they whimpered in placating voices. “Master, we serve only you!”

  Who among the Druids escaped the Keep besides Bremen?

  “Only three, Master. A Dwarf, Risca. An Elf, Tay Trefenwyd. A Southland girl, Mareth.”

  Did they go with Bremen?

  “Yes, with Bremen.”

  No others escaped?

  “No, Master. None.”

  They will return. They will hear of Paranor’s fall and went to make certain it is so. You will be waiting. You will finish what I have begun. Then you will be as I am.

  “Yes, Master, yes!”

  Stand.

  They did so, rising hastily, eagerly, broken spirits and minds that were his to command. Yet they lacked the strength to do what was required of them and so must be altered. He reached out to them with his magic, wrapped them about with strands as thin as
gossamer and as unyielding as iron, and stole away the last of what was human.

  Their shrieks echoed through the empty halls as he relentlessly shaped them into something new. Arms and legs flailed. Heads jerked wildly and eyes bulged.

  When he was done, they were no longer recognizable. He left them thus, and with the remainder of his minions trailing obediently after he stole back into the night, abandoning the castle of the Druids to the dying and the dead.

  Don’t miss one exciting installment of the

  Magic Kingdom of Landover series!

  Find out which Terry Brooks novel you need …

  MAGIC KINGDOM

  FOR SALE—SOLD!

  Landover was a genuine magic kingdom, with fairy folk and wizardry, just as the advertisement had promised. But after he purchased it, Ben Holiday learned there were a few details left out.

  The kingdom was in ruin. The barons refused to recognize a king, and the peasants were without hope. A dragon was laying waste the countryside while an evil witch plotted to destroy everything.

  The task of proving his right to be King seemed hopeless. But Ben Holiday was not about to give up …

  MAGIC KINGDOM FOR SALE—SOLD!

  Book One of The Magic Kingdom of Landover

  by Terry Brooks

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group

  Available in your local bookstore.

  THE BLACK UNICORN

  A year had passed since Ben Holiday had bought the Magic Kingdom from the wizard Meeks, who had set a series of pitfalls against him. Troubled by dreams of disaster to his former partner, Miles Bennett, Ben had traveled to Earth. But unknown to Ben, the dreams had been a trap set by Meeks, who then returned to the Magic Kingdom as a tiny insect hidden in Ben’s clothing and cast a spell to switch appearances with him. Soon Ben became an outcast, no longer recognized by any friend. Of course, there was the prism cat, whatever that was … And where was Willow—and the mysterious black unicorn she had set out to find?

  THE BLACK UNICORN

  Book Two of The Magic Kingdom of Landover

  by Terry Brooks

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group

  Available in your local bookstore.

  WIZARD AT LARGE

  It all began when the half-able wizard Questor Thews announced that, finally, he could restore the Court Scribe Abernathy to human form. It was his spell that had turned Abernathy into a Wheaten Terrier—though with hands and the ability to talk.

  All went well—until the wizard breathed in the magic dust of his spell and suddenly sneezed. Then, where Abernathy stood, there was only a bottle containing a particularly evil imp.

  High Lord Ben Holiday set forth for Earth, but without the soil of Landover in which to root as a tree at times, Willow could not long survive.

  That left it up to Questor Thews to save them. And to make matters worse, the imp had escaped …

  WIZARD AT LARGE

  Book Three of The Magic Kingdom of Landover

  by Terry Brooks

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group

  Available in your local bookstore.

  THE TANGLE BOX

  Everything should have been quiet and pleasant for Ben Holiday, former Chicago lawyer become sovereign of the Magic Kingdom of Landover. But it wasn’t.

  Horris Kew, conjurer, confidence man, and trickster, had returned to Landover from Ben’s own world, sent by the Gorse, a sorcerer of great evil, whom Horris had unwittingly freed from the magic Tangle Box. Now it had returned to enslave those who had once dared to condemn it. But first it would rid Landover of all who could stand in its way …

  THE TANGLE BOX

  Book Four of The Magic Kingdom of Landover

  by Terry Brooks

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group

  Available in your local bookstore.

  RUNNING WITH THE DEMON

  A Novel of Good and Evil

  by Terry Brooks

  Twenty years ago, Terry Brooks turned fantasy fiction on its head with The Sword of Shannara, the first fantasy novel to make the mainstream bestseller lists, and the first in an unbroken string of thirteen bestselling books.

  Now Brooks does nothing less than revitalize fantasy fiction again, inventing the complex and powerful new mythos of the Word and the Void, good versus evil still, but played out in the theater-in-the-round of the “real world” of our present.

  RUNNING WITH

  THE DEMON

  A Novel of Good and Evil

  by Terry Brooks

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group. Available in your local bookstore.

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