Ilse Witch

by Terry Brooks

  “Time to use other means to conceal ourselves,” Truls Rohk advised, hunching down within his robes. “Easy enough for me. I am a shape-shifter and can become anything. Harder for you, boy. But you have the tools. Hum for me again. This time, use your voice as if you were hiding still within the grasses, as if they were all around you. Here, slip this over your head.”

  He handed Bek a cloak, torn and frayed and dirtied. Bek slipped into it obediently. It smelled of the grasses the shape-shifter wished him to blend into. He took a moment to adjust the garment, then looked at the other questioningly.

  Truls Rohk nodded. “Go on. Do as I told you. Hum for me. Use the sound to change the air about you. Stir it like water at the end of a stick. Push what you can away from you. Bury what you can’t deep inside. Make yourself a part of the cloak.”

  Bek did, losing himself in the smells and feel of the cloak, in his vision of the plains, burrowing deep into loam and roots, into a place where only insects and animals ventured. He hummed softly, steadily for a time, then stopped and looked at the shape-shifter again.

  “You see a little of it now, don’t you?” the other whispered. “A little of how you are? But only a little. Not yet all. Come.”

  He took Bek out from their concealment into the open, his form changing visibly in front of the boy, turning liquid, losing shape against the night. Bek hummed softly, wrapping himself in the feel and smell of his cloak, masking himself, hiding who and what he was deep within. They entered the castle without difficulty, moving from the darkness of the outer courtyards and into the gloom of the inner halls. They penetrated deep within the ruins, advancing steadily, as if they were no more than a breeze carried off the grasslands. Walls appeared before them, looking solid and impenetrable, but Truls Rohk passed right through them with an astonished Bek following in his wake. Stairs appeared where none had been moments earlier, and they climbed or descended accordingly. Doors materialized and closed behind them. Sometimes the air itself changed from light to dark, from pitch to clear liquid, altering the nature of the path ahead. Gradually, Bek came to see that the entire castle was nothing of what it seemed, but was instead a vast labyrinth of mirages and illusions integrated into the stone and designed to deceive—to provide doorways and paths that led nowhere, to offer obstacles where none existed, to obscure and confuse.

  If it wasn’t magic, Bek wondered, what was it? Or was it simply that the magic was so vast and so thoroughly infused that it could not be separated from everything else?

  They reached a stone wall thick with dust and spider-webbing, a barrier of heavy stone blocks pitted with weather and age. Truls Rohk stopped and gestured for Bek to stay back. He faced the wall and swept the air before him with his arm. The air shimmered and changed, and the shape-shifter turned all but invisible, a hint of a shadow, a stirring of dust in a soft rustle of wind. Then he was gone, melting into the stone, disappearing as if he had never been there at all. Bek searched for him in vain. There was nothing to see.

  But an instant later, he was back, materializing out of nowhere, rising up out of the gloom, his cloaked and hooded form as liquid as the shadows he emulated. He paused just long enough to hold out his hand, open his fingers, and reveal the third key.

  It was a mistake. In that instant, caught up in the excitement of their success, Bek stopped humming.

  At once, his disguise fell away and the feel of the castle changed. The change was palpable, a heavy rush of wind, a flurry of dust and debris, an agonizing sigh that spilled down the stone hallways and across the courtyards, a shudder that emanated from deep within the earth. Bek tried to recover, to conceal himself anew, but it was too late. Something fierce and primal howled down the corridors and rushed across the stones like an uncaged beast. Bek felt his heart freeze and his chest tighten. He stood where he was, trying to muster a defense he didn’t have.

  Truls Rohk saved him. The shape-shifter snatched him off his feet as if he were a child, tucked him under an arm that felt as if it were banded in iron, and began to run. Back down the halls and passageways and across the courtyards he raced. Leaping over crumbled stone and along worn trenches, he bore the boy away from the enraged spirit. But it was all around, infused in the castle stone, and it came at them from everywhere. Hidden doors dropped into place before them with deafening thuds. Iron gates clanged shut. Spikes rose out of the earth to spear at them. Trapdoors dropped away beneath their feet. Truls Rohk catapulted and twisted his way past every hazard, sometimes using the walls and even the ceilings to find handholds and footholds. Nothing slowed him. He ran as if on fire.

  Bek used his voice in an effort to help, humming anew, not knowing what he did, but needing at least to try. He hummed to make them as swift and elusive as birds, to give them the liquidity of water, to lend them the ethereal qualities of air. He threw up anything and everything he could think of, constantly changing tactics, trying to throw off the thing that pursued them. He melted into the creature that bore him away, disappearing into the smell of earth and grasses, into the feel of iron muscles, into the feral instincts and quick reflexes. He lost himself completely in a being he did not begin to understand. He lost all sense of who he was. He stripped himself of identity and fragmented into the night.

  Then suddenly he lay stretched upon the earth, buried in the tall grasses, and he realized they were back outside again. Truls Rohk crouched next to him, head lowered, shoulders heaving, and the sound of his breathing was like an animal’s growl. Then he began to laugh, low and guttural at first, then broader and wilder. Bek laughed with him, oddly euphoric, strangely exhilarated, the death that had sought them outrun and outsmarted.

  “Oh, you’re nothing of what you seem, are you, boy?” the shape-shifter gasped out between laughs. “Nothing of what you were told all these years! Did you know you had a voice that could do this?” He gestured back toward the castle.

  “What was it I did?” Bek pressed, convulsed by laughter, as well.

  “Magic!”

  Bek went still then, his laughter fading to silence. He lay in the tall grasses and stared at the stars, listening to the echoes of the word in his mind. Magic! Magic! Magic! No, he thought. That wasn’t right. He didn’t know any magic. Never had. Oh, yes, he had the phoenix stone, the talisman he wore about his neck, given to him by the King of the Silver River, and perhaps that was what—

  “You saved us, boy,” Truls Rohk said.

  Bek looked over quickly. “You saved us.”

  The dark form shifted and slid nearer. “I took us clear of the spirit’s reach, but you were the one who kept it at bay. It would have had us otherwise. It dwells all through those ruins. It masks the truth of what it is and how it looks. It protects itself with deception. But you were its equal this night. Don’t you see? Yours was the greater deception, all movement and sound and color … ah, sweet!”

  He leaned close, invisible within his cloak and hood. “Listen to me. You saved us this night, but I saved you once before. I carried you from the ruins of your home and the dark fate of your family. That makes us even!”

  Bek stared. “What are you talking about?”

  “We are the same, boy,” Truls Rohk said again. “We were born of the ashes of our parents, of the heritage of our blood, of a history and fate that was never ours to change. We are kindred in ways you can only guess at. The truth is elusive. Some of it you discovered for yourself this night. The rest you must claim from the man who holds it hostage.”

  He reached out and pressed the third key into Bek’s hand, closing the boy’s fingers over it. “Take this to the Druid. He should be grateful he did not have to retrieve it himself—grateful enough to give up the truth he wrongfully imprisons. Trust begets trust, boy. Ward yourself carefully until that trust is shared. Keep secret what you have learned this night. Pay heed to what I say.”

  Then he vanished, sliding away so swiftly and suddenly that he was gone almost before the boy realized he was going. Bek stared into the quivering grasses through
which Truls Rohk had vanished, speechless, aghast. Moments later, he watched a shadow lift off the plains and slide upward along one of the airship’s anchor lines before disappearing over the side.

  The Jerle Shannara hung etched against the departing night by the first pale glimmerings of dawn as Bek waited for a glimpse of something more. When nothing came, he rose wearily and began his walk back.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “You disobeyed me, Bek,” the Druid said quietly, his voice so chilly the boy could feel the ice in it. “You were told not to leave the ship at night, and you did so anyway.”

  They were alone in Redden Alt Mer’s cabin, where as many as nine of the company had gathered comfortably on more than one occasion during their voyage, but where on this morning it felt as if the Druid was taking up all the space and Bek was in danger of being crushed.

  “The order I gave extended to everyone, yourself included. It was very clear. No one was to leave the ship without my permission. And particularly not to go into the castle.”

  Bek stood frozen in front of the Druid, his hand outstretched, the third key held forth. Of all the possible reactions he had anticipated, this was not among them. He had expected to be chastised for his impetuous behavior, certainly. He had expected to be lectured on the importance of following orders. But all of his imagined scenarios ended with Walker expressing his gratitude to the boy for having gained possession of the key. There would be no need for another day of scavenging through the ruins and risking the safety of the ship’s company. There would be no more delays. With the third key in hand, they could proceed to their final destination and the treasure that waited there.

  Bek saw no hint of gratitude in the Druid’s eyes as he stood before him now.

  It had not occurred to him until he was back aboard ship that his plan to hand the key over to Walker in front of the other members of the ship’s company so that he could bask in the glow of their praise and be recognized at last as an equal would not work. If he gave the key to Walker in public, he would have to explain how he obtained it. That meant telling everyone about Truls Rohk, which Walker would certainly not appreciate, or about his own magic, which the shape-shifter had warned him not to do. He would have to present the key to the Druid in private and be satisfied with knowing that at least the ship’s leader appreciated his value to the expedition.

  But it didn’t look just now as if appreciation was high on Walker’s list of responses. He hadn’t even bothered to ask how Bek had obtained the key. The moment he saw it, held out to him just as it was now, he had gone black with anger.

  He took the key from Bek’s hand, his dark eyes heavy on the boy, hard and piercing. Overhead, the members of the ship’s company were preparing for another day’s search, not yet advised that it would not be necessary to go ashore again. The sound of their movements across the decking rumbled through the cabin’s silence, another world away from what was happening here.

  “I’m sorry,” Bek managed finally, his arm dropping back to his side. “I didn’t think that—”

  “Truls Rohk put you up to this, didn’t he?” Walker interrupted, new fury clouding his angry features. Bek nodded. “Tell me about it, then. Tell me everything that happened.”

  To his own astonishment, Bek did not do so. He told Walker almost everything. He told him how the shape-shifter had come to him and urged him to go with him into the castle ruins and bring out the key. He told him how Truls Rohk insisted they were alike and repeated the other’s strange story of his birth and parentage. He related their approach and entry into the castle, their discovery of the key, and their escape. But he left out everything about the magic the shape-shifter claimed Bek possessed. He made no mention of the way in which his voice seemed to generate this magic. He kept his discovery to himself, deciding almost without meaning to that this was not the time to broach the subject.

  Walker seemed satisfied with his explanation, and some of the fire went out of his eyes and the ice out of his voice when he spoke again. “Truls Rohk knows better than to involve you in this. He knows better than to risk your life needlessly. He is impetuous and unpredictable, so his actions should not surprise me. But you have to use better judgment in these situations, Bek. You can’t let yourself be led around by the nose. What if something had happened to you?”

  “What if it had?”

  The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. He hadn’t intended to speak them, hadn’t planned to challenge the Druid in any way this morning, given his unexpected reaction to Bek’s recovery of the key. But the boy felt cheated of all recognition for his accomplishment and was angry now himself. After all, it wasn’t Truls Rohk who was leading him around by the nose so much as Walker.

  “If I hadn’t come back,” he pressed, “what difference would it make?”

  The Druid stared, a look of surprise in his dark eyes.

  “Tell me the truth, Walker. I’m not here just because you needed another pair of eyes and ears. I’m not along just because I’m Quentin’s cousin.” He had gone too far to turn back, so he plowed ahead. “In fact, I’m not really his cousin at all, am I? Coran told me before I left that Holm Rowe didn’t bring me to him. You did. You told Coran his cousin gave me to you, but Truls Rohk said he pulled me from the ruins of my home and saved me from the dark fate of my family. His words. Who’s telling the truth about me, Walker?”

  There was a long pause. “Everyone,” the Druid said finally. “To the extent they are able to do so.”

  “But I’m not a Leah or a Rowe either, am I?”

  The Druid shook his head. “No.”

  “Then who am I?”

  Walker shook his head anew. “I’m not ready to tell you that. You must wait a while, Bek.”

  Bek kept his temper and frustration in check, knowing that if he gave vent to what he was feeling, the conversation would be over and his chance at discovering anything lost. Patience and perseverance would gain him more.

  “It wasn’t by chance or coincidence that you contacted me on Shatterstone when the jungle had you trapped, was it?” he asked, taking a different approach. “You knew you could reach me with a mind-summons.”

  “I knew,” the Druid acknowledged.

  “How?”

  Again, the Druid shook his head no.

  “All right.” Bek forced himself to remain calm. “Let me tell you something I’ve been keeping from you. Something happened on the journey from Leah to Arborlon that I haven’t told anyone, not even Quentin. On our first night out, while we were camped along the Silver River, I had a nighttime visitor.”

  Quickly, he related the events that surrounded the appearance of the King of the Silver River. He told him how the spirit creature had appeared as a young girl who looked vaguely familiar, then transformed into a reptilian monster, then into an old man. He repeated what he could remember of their conversation and ended by telling Walker of the phoenix stone. The Druid did not change expression even once during the tale, but his dark eyes revealed the mix of emotions he was feeling.

  Bek finished and stood shifting his feet nervously in the silence that followed, half anticipating another attack on his lack of judgment. But Walker just stared at him, as if trying to figure him out, as if seeing him in an entirely new light.

  “Was it really the King of the Silver River?” the boy asked finally.

  The Druid nodded.

  “Why did he come to me? What was his reason?”

  Walker looked away for a moment, as if seeking his answers in the walls of the vessel. “The images of the young girl and the monster are meant to inform you, to help you make certain decisions. The phoenix stone is to protect you if those decisions prove dangerous.”

  Now it was Bek’s turn to stare. “What sort of decisions?”

  The Druid shook his head.

  “That’s all you’re going to tell me?”

  The Druid nodded.

  “Are you mad at me for this, too?” Bek demanded in exasperation. “For
not telling you sooner?”

  “It might have been a good idea if you had.”

  Bek threw up his hands. “I might have done so, Walker, if I hadn’t begun to wonder what I was really doing on this expedition! But once I knew you weren’t telling me everything, I didn’t feel it was necessary for me to tell you everything either!” He was shouting, but he couldn’t help himself. “I’m only telling you now because I don’t want to go another day without knowing the truth! I’m not asking that much!”

  The Druid’s smile was ironic and chiding. “You are asking much more than you realize.”

  The boy set his jaw. “Maybe so. But I’m asking anyway. I want to know the truth!”

  The Druid was implacable. “It isn’t time yet. You will have to be patient.”

  Bek felt himself flush dark crimson, his face turning hot and angry. All of his resolve to control himself vanished in a heartbeat. “That’s easy for someone to say who has all the answers. You wouldn’t like it so much if you were on the other end of this business. I can’t make you tell me what you know. But I can quit being your eyes and ears until you do! If you don’t trust me enough to share what you know, then I don’t see why I should do anything more to help you!”

  Walker nodded, calm and unmoved. “That’s your choice, Bek. I will miss your help.”

  Bek stared at him a moment longer, trying to think of what else to say, then gave it up and stalked from the room, slamming the cabin door behind him. There were tears in his eyes as he stomped back up on deck with the others.

  Walker stayed where he was for a few moments, thinking through what had happened, trying to decide if he had made the right choice in not revealing what he knew. Eventually, he must. Everything depended on it. But if he told Bek too soon, if the boy was given too much time to dwell on it, he might be paralyzed by fear or doubt when it came time to act. It was better to keep the burden of it from him for as long as possible, even if it meant incurring his anger. It was better to leave him in ignorance awhile longer.