The Measure of the Magic: Legends of Shannara

by Terry Brooks

  She ran hard, and soon her breath was ragged and her muscles aching. She had left the village behind, the madness and chaos consuming it. But even escape could not free her from her sense of disbelief and shock.

  That—that thing—inhabiting Skeal Eile’s body wasn’t the Seraphic. Old stories recalled themselves—stories of the time when the Hawk led his people into the valley. They had been pursued by many evils, but chief among them were the demons.

  And now one was in their midst, disguised as Skeal Eile. She had no doubt this was what she and Brickey had faced. And suddenly she stopped where she was, appalled.

  That old man, the ragpicker, trying to charm her into revealing what she knew about Sider and his talisman. That old man, who had threatened her in his chillingly soft-voiced, terrifyingly confident way, letting her know that if she crossed him she would live to regret it. She could still feel herself wilting under the force of his words, only just managing to hold on.

  Skeal Eile was only a pawn in this, not the instigator she had thought him to be. The eyes gave away the demon within; there was no mistaking it. But the demon had not always been there; if it had, she would have noticed. Sider would have noticed. The demon was new, and it had taken the Seraphic’s form, which was why it had been able to kill her husband so easily, why it could charm the people of her village as the real Seraphic had never been able to do, why it had upended everyone’s lives in a single night with false promises and twisted dreams. He was the reason Arik Siq was free and she was made to appear responsible. He was the cause of everything twisted and bad that had happened.

  She almost collapsed with the weight of her revelation. It was a struggle even to continue to walk, to put one foot in front of the other.

  She forced herself to start moving faster. She could not afford to be recaptured.

  She reached a stretch of deep woods just outside the village and plunged in without slowing, intent on getting through quickly and making her way to higher ground. She was tiring now, no longer able to run, to find the reserves of strength she knew she would need if she were pursued. Once, when she was younger, she could have run all day. Once, when she was with Sider, she had done so, matching him stride for stride, as strong and able as he was, a match for him in every way. What she had lost was a pain she had carried with her ever since. But now, fleeing from the demon, it surfaced with fresh intensity and made her weep.

  She staggered to a halt finally, stopping to listen to the stillness. Though she tried, she heard nothing. The night was deep and empty of sound; not even the night birds called out. She took deep breaths to steady herself, thinking that perhaps she had lost him, had left him behind—the demon that pretended at being Skeal Eile, the monster she had feared would continue to track her.

  But maybe not. Maybe not.

  She swallowed hard and started out again, setting a fresh pace, slow but steady. She was in thick woods and heavy grasses, and she could not go any faster. But perhaps this was fast enough.

  “Aislinne? Are you there? You are, aren’t you? I can smell you.”

  She felt herself tighten with fear, but she kept going.

  “There’s no point in running from me. There’s nowhere you can go that I can’t find you. Why not just put an end to this?”

  Somehow, it had managed to find her trail. Somehow, it had closed the gap she thought she had opened between them. She had run so hard, so fast, and yet here it was, almost on top of her. She felt fresh tears run down her cheeks, but she stayed silent, working her way through the trees.

  “I will make it quick, if you simply wait for me to come to you. Just give me a word or a sign to let me know you prefer it that way. Your little friend isn’t here to help you anymore. Nor is your foolish husband. Nor the man who carried the black staff until he died at the hands of the Drouj. They’re all gone. You’re all alone.”

  She wanted to scream, to shatter his bones with the force of her rage. But she could do nothing to him. She wasn’t even carrying a weapon.

  “Aislinne, are you listening? I know you can hear me.”

  There was no escaping this creature, yet she must find a way. She tightened her resolve and pressed on, sliding ghostlike through the trees, stepping carefully, silently. Leave no trace of your passing. Leave no footprint or sign. Stay focused on what is needed. Do not let yourself be swayed by his words. They are only words, and they cannot hurt you.

  Yet they did. They cut like knives.

  She was deep in the woods now, so far in that she could only barely find her way from one sliver of moonlight to the next, everything gone stifling and dark, layered with shadows. She was infused with a sense of need for haste that she knew she must resist. One step at a time, she told herself. The demon had gone silent, but she knew it was back there, following doggedly, determined to catch her and put an end to her.

  If she was lucky. Much worse, if she was not.

  Then a shadow crossed her path just ahead, a glimmer of something unlike real shadows, something not wholly dark but lit from within. She gasped in spite of herself and almost gave way to the fear pressing down on her. But then the shadow disappeared, and she turned away from it.

  She blinked uncertainly. She must have imagined it. It wasn’t there now, had barely been there before. Yet something about it—something in the way it moved—was familiar.

  “Aislinne?”

  The demon again, but farther off now, its voice more distant.

  She moved ahead carefully, waiting for something more. Abruptly, the shadow was there in front of her again, a faint glimmer, a forest wraith come out of nowhere to intercept her. She veered away once more, hurrying just a little faster now to get clear of it. It was there before her only an instant and then gone. Just as before, it seemed no more than a vision her imagination had conjured.

  But this time she had the odd impression that it mimicked something of Sider Ament.

  On she went, working her way through a tangle of trunks and grasses, ruts and gnarled roots, the shadow appearing and fading again at regular intervals, each time causing her to veer in a new direction, each time reminding her in faint ways of Sider.

  She only heard the demon once more. It called her name from what seemed like a great distance, and then she didn’t hear it again.

  It was nearing dawn when she found her way clear of the forest and started upcountry toward Sider’s old home. The night air was cold on her skin; she wore only the clothes she’d had on while imprisoned, not having had time to find anything more, and she shivered in the predawn chill. But she kept moving to keep warm, to reach her destination, and after a time she didn’t notice the cold so much.

  She thought about the ghost in the woods, the shadowy form with the inner-burning light, and she decided that it wasn’t her imagination or a hallucination. It was something else entirely. It was Sider reaching out to her, keeping her safe, even after death. She didn’t know if she believed such a thing was possible, but that was what she felt.

  She trekked out of the forested valley floor and began to climb toward the scattering of homes on the upper slopes. Although Sider’s home was abandoned, another farmer had taken over management of his parents’ fields and farmed them as part of his own. Sider had never said anything to the man and his wife about wanting compensation, but had simply let it go. The farmer and his wife already lived nearby when Sider departed with the former bearer of the black staff. After his parents died, the house was left vacant—already beginning to fall into ruin. Sider had never returned, so far as anyone knew. But that was like him, she thought. He had never come back to anything. The past was never his concern.

  But on this occasion, it would be hers.

  If she could be safe anywhere, it would be here.

  Still keeping a sharp eye out for the demon, still afraid it might find her, she worked her way steadily upslope to the beginnings of Sider’s old homestead and from there around the early plantings in the fields to where the remains of his house stood abando
ned. She approached cautiously, aware that she was unarmed and woefully deficient in fighting skills. But the building was dark and silent and, in the end, empty. Mice and rats and a few nesting birds had made a home within, but nothing more dangerous was in evidence.

  She stepped inside through the open doorway, the door itself long since gone, and stood looking into the darkness as her eyes adjusted. She listened to the sounds of wings beating and paws scurrying, and then she moved through the tiny living area, past the little kitchen space, and into the room at the back of the house that had been Sider’s.

  Once within that room, she stopped again. Moonlight flooded through the open window, illuminating a bed, a chest at its foot, and a small table and chair. There was nothing else, and what remained was splintered and broken and empty of anything useful. Bones from another life, the skeleton of better times—it made her cry all over again.

  But then she wiped the tears away, took a deep breath, and moved to one corner. The boards that hid the concealing compartment Sider had built with his own hands were still in place. She found the cleverly designed fingerholds, released the small wooden slide latches, and lifted the boards away.

  Beneath she found what she was looking for, a bundle fully six feet long wrapped in canvas and lashed with leather ties, right where Sider had left it all those years ago. She removed it from its hiding place, laid it on the floor, and loosened the ties.

  She caught her breath. They were still there.

  Before her lay an ash bow and a quiver of steel-tipped arrows. Sider had made them himself, choosing the woods, carving the bow and each shaft, weaving the heavy string, forging the metal tips at the village smithy, sewing the quiver and sheath. He had done it not long after he met her and had taught her how to use it. He was good with the bow, but she was better. One day, he had told her, after we are married, these will belong to you. They will be a wedding present.

  He had tried to give them to her anyway, when it was clear there would be no marriage, but she had refused. Even so, she had never forgotten them. She knew where he hid them, how he had fashioned this hiding place to keep them safe. She hadn’t been sure she would find them here, but she knew he had never carried any other weapon after he had received the black staff.

  As she knelt on the cottage floor looking down at the bow and arrows, memories she had thought forgotten flooding through her, she wondered what had made her come here. If she had wanted a weapon to protect herself, she could have made other choices.

  Why had she made this one?

  With so much lost, with so much stolen away, perhaps she had wanted to take something back. Sider, Pogue, Brickey, her friends, her home, and her place in the world were all gone. Everything she had been able to count on over the years—vanished. She sensed that she would never get any of it back, that she must start over again and find a new life.

  But the bow and arrows were something she could take with her. They would give her a sense of security if the demon came after her. They were Sider’s, and she believed now that he would always be with her.

  Exhausted, she took the bow and arrows and moved back out into the front room of the ruins. Except for the bowstring, which was in shreds, the weapon was still in perfect shape. She would find a replacement for the string from one of the surrounding farms or hunting shacks in the morning. If needed, she would weave one herself. For now, she had to rest. She propped herself up in one corner where she was hidden from view but could peer out through cracks in the boards at the countryside leading up from the valley. If the demon still pursued her, she could see it coming.

  She knew it was wishful thinking to suppose that she could stop the demon if it found her. She knew, as well, that escape was unlikely. But her belief was all she had, and so she clung to it.

  Outside her little shelter, dawn was breaking.

  She fell asleep watching it unfold.

  “CITIZENS OF GLENSK WOOD! Pay close heed to me!”

  The demon that appeared to be Skeal Eile scanned the anxious faces of the crowd. The sun had risen, a blood-red sphere in the eastern sky, a promise of something unspoken.

  “A new day begins, a day that shall see us all on our journey to join hearts and minds and hands with the one who brought us here so many years ago and has now come to gather us up again, sheep into the fold!”

  The demon stood on the steps of the council hall building facing the multitudes he had called together, the men and women of the village still flush with the wildness and fever of the previous night, remembering what had been promised them, hungry to witness its coming. He held them all spellbound, captivated by the dark magic of his voice as it layered the air infusing their senses, drawing them in when reason—had there been even a shred of it left—would have warned them to back away.

  “You were promised that this day would come. From the time of your ancestors, you were assured of it. The Hawk brought you safely into this valley and gave you this home. But one day, you were told, the protective wall of magic that he had created would fall away, and he would return for you. You were told this, and you believed. Now is that day. The wall is down, the magic is gone, and the old world crouches like a beast on your doorstep. But you are not forsaken. You are not abandoned. The Hawk has come to lead you to safety.”

  There were scattered shouts and cheers, and even in the eyes of those who said nothing, but only listened, trust and blind faith were reflected, conjured by the demon’s magic. There was no hint of doubt, and no one questioned the words of the speaker.

  This was so easy, the demon thought as he lifted his arms in an embracing gesture, drawing them further in. They were sheep then—they were sheep now. Pitifully willing to believe the wildest, most improbable of myths—myths they themselves had created and nurtured as they would the flowers of a garden, fragile and beautiful and ephemeral. They wanted so badly for someone to assure them that the bright and shiny promise was faithful to the dreams they so readily embraced. Make us safe. Keep us well. Take us to where nothing threatens, to where all is peaceful and can be kept so.

  Such sheep.

  If not for Aislinne Kray, he could be truly content. But after tracking her to the deep woods he had lost her, and that was troubling. It was impossible that such a thing could happen once he had gotten the smell of his quarry, but in this case it had. It bothered him even now, hours later, after he had returned empty-handed. Still, it was not important in the larger scheme of things, he reasoned. She was nothing to him but an irritant, and she played no role in his plans for the bearer of the staff and the staff’s magic. He would have both, and he would have them soon.

  “We must trust in the promise that the place we seek awaits us and the Hawk will lead us there. I have seen him. I have spoken with him. He will take us one village at a time to where no dangers will ever reach us again. He begins with us, with this village, with the people of Glensk Wood, because we stand nearest the danger and require the quickest response. Others will see him, as well, when he returns for them, but we are the first.”

  He paused meaningfully. “But only if you believe! Only if you act on your faith! Only if you are true to your commitment to his teachings and to your sect and to your Seraphic!”

  He had made himself larger and more dramatic in appearance than the real Seraphic had looked when he was alive. He had changed his features and his voice, and the overall impression he had created was one of power and majesty. Those assembled saw him as enhanced by the power invested in him as their spiritual leader; they had witnessed firsthand how easily he could dispose of those who challenged his authority. Though the body had been removed during the night, no one had forgotten the fate of Pogue Kray. Such power commanded respect and discouraged doubts. It was so now as the Seraphic revealed what was required of them.

  “Do you believe?” Skeal Eile demanded suddenly, his voice booming out across the square and down the paths and roads that were crammed with the people of the village. “Do you believe enough to come with me? Do
you believe enough to do whatever is needed to find your way? Do you commit to what your faith asks of you? Will you put aside your doubts and fears and march boldly out of this valley to your new home? Who among you is with me?”

  The roar of commitment was vast and deafening. Voices rose as a single bellow of affirmation and trust.

  “Let me hear you!” the demon shouted over the roar. “Let the whole world hear your song of faith!”

  The crowd had gone wild, arms raised and fists clenched in gestures that matched the cacophony of their voices. They were his now, committed to his cause—a cause as thin and transparent as the air they breathed and every bit as necessary to their desperation. They would go with him, and they would find what he had promised.

  But they would not find it in the way they believed. They would find that even a new world was full of surprises.

  “Gather your children and old people together! Take up your weapons and collect food and water! We leave at once!”

  He watched them scatter to their homes to do as he had commanded of them, and he felt a great sense of satisfaction. His power over them was complete, the dark magic he wielded irresistible. With no one to stand against him, with no voice to be raised in protest, there was nothing to sway them from the course he had set. They gave no thought to what would be demanded of them. They would follow him to wherever he led them, no matter the destination, no matter the cost.

  They would follow him, and they would pay the price for doing so.

  IT WAS NEARING MIDDAY when Prue Liss reached the slopes of the valley leading down into Glensk Wood. She had been following the scarlet dove all night and throughout the morning without stopping for more than a few minutes at a time to rest, calling on reserves of strength she hadn’t known she possessed. She was driven in large part by her need to find Pan, to reach his side before anything worse could happen. She had no idea if this was possible. Even now, the path she followed was seemingly taking her back to the village of Glensk Wood where she was certain he would not go. She struggled with her doubts as she traveled, more than once thinking to turn aside in favor of a more likely destination. Yet the dove drew her now as it had when it had brought her to Pan the first time, and she could not make herself forsake it.