Antrax (27 page)

“I know.”

He waited a moment, then nodded. “All right.”

She lifted her chin slightly, as if facing up to something she did not want to, a confession of truths she would just as soon avoid. The gesture was a telling one, defiant and brave. It made Ahren feel something for her that hadn’t been there before. Respect, perhaps. Admiration.

“I’m not what you think I am,” she began, holding his gaze. It seemed to him that she was forcing herself to look at him. “I’m not what anyone thought I was. I came on this journey for more reasons than one. When Walker came to find me, I already knew he was coming. I had been instructed to go with him when he did. My purpose was to act as seer, but not only that—not even primarily that. My purpose in coming with you was to spy for the Ilse Witch.”

She waited to hear Ahren’s reaction, but he was too surprised to respond.

She smiled bitterly. “You look stunned. Don’t you believe me? It’s true. I was a spy for the Ilse Witch from the day Walker came to see me and for many years before. I sold myself to her long ago. It wasn’t difficult at all, really. It happened like this. I was born with the sight, and I knew I had it from an early age. I could see the futures of those around me, sometimes in detail, sometimes just bits and pieces. I was an orphan raised by caregivers who took in strays like myself. They were kind to me, but they thought me strange, and indeed I was. I told no one of my gift, for I understood right from the start that to be different was to be dangerous in the eyes of many. I kept my gift a secret and tried to forget it was there. That was impossible to do, of course. It grew even worse when I discovered, quite by accident, that I was an empath,
as well, and could heal physical and emotional wounds by touch. I didn’t discover that gift until later, but once it was revealed, I had to leave my caregivers and find a place where no one knew me.

“I was twelve years old when I came to Grimpen Ward with a band of Rovers. They took me in because that is the way of Rovers, and they saw no harm in seeing me safely to my intended destination. They thought me strange, as well, but they left me alone. In Grimpen Ward, I sought out the Addershag. She was the reason I had gone there. Everyone knew she was the most powerful seer in the Four Lands, and I hoped that she would take me in and train me. I did not know she had never taken an apprentice. I did not appreciate the enormity of what it was I was seeking to accomplish.

“She set me straight quick enough. She turned me away without taking even a moment to consider what I was asking of her. I was devastated but I refused to give up. I stayed outside her door, waiting for her to change her mind. I stayed there for two months. Finally, she invited me to come in and sit with her. She tested me, asking me to do different things. When I finished doing what she wanted, she nodded and said I could stay. That was all. I could stay.

“For weeks, I did nothing but cook and clean and fetch for her. She treated me as a servant girl, and I was eager enough to be with her that I didn’t mind. Finally, she began showing me something of my gift, a little only, then a little more. My instruction had begun. After a while, I became her assistant and confidante, as well. She was old and tough and dangerous. She was unpredictable, too. But I did well enough that I didn’t feel threatened.”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, as if releasing anguish she had kept bottled up for a long time. “I made a mistake, though. When I came to her and told her of my gift of sight, asking that she teach me to use it, I kept to myself that I was an empath. I was afraid to tell her, thinking that it might affect her decision to train me, that it did not matter if I was, so long as I kept it to
myself. But in the third year of my training, I had a vision in which a little girl in the village was struck down in an accident. As was our custom, we gave the information to the parents for a fee of their choosing. We did that with everyone, not to make money, but so that we could live comfortably. No one ever complained. But our warning was not enough to save the little girl, and although she was not killed, she was injured badly enough that it seemed clear she would die.

“I asked the Addershag to let me go to her. She refused. There was nothing we could do, nothing we hadn’t already done. I went anyway. I used my empathic powers and healed the little girl. I did it so that it appeared she recovered on her own, that I was only a vessel to show her the way back. But the Addershag knew better. She told me that my empathic gift would kill me one day, that an empath tracking fate in an effort to change its course would only end up throwing away her own life in the process. She said I was wasting my precious gift and her time, and I would do better on my own. She disowned me. She cast me out.”

She pulled her knees to her chest and gave Ahren a wry, sad smile. “She was right. I did well enough. I was known and liked. Some mistrusted and challenged my talent, but not so many. I was visited often enough and kept busy. I was careful with use of my empathic abilities. Once or twice, I tried visiting the Addershag, but she would have nothing to do with me. Her interest lay in deciphering the future; she cared nothing for the past and hence nothing for me. I grew bitter toward her, angry that she would treat me with such disdain. But I was afraid of her, too. She was very old and her enemies all lay dead and buried. I did not care to become one of them. So I stayed out of her way.

“Then the Ilse Witch came to me, and everything changed.”

She looked away from him for a moment, out into the emptiness of the passageway, into the dimly lit shadows beyond their
magic-induced sanctuary, but beyond even that, he sensed, into the past.

Her eyes shifted back to his. “She showed herself to me, something it was said she never did. She was young, like me. She was an orphan, like me. She was so like me that I saw myself in her from the moment we met. She was a powerful sorceress, and I wanted her friendship and patronage. So when she proposed the bargain, I accepted. I would be her eyes and ears in Grimpen Ward and give her news of things that she should know. She, in turn, would make certain that when the Addershag died, I would ascend to her position as principal seer in Grimpen Ward.”

Her pale, ethereal features tightened. “I insisted I did not want the Addershag to come to any harm. I was assured she would not. She was old, after all, and would die soon enough. Did I question this? Did I want to see her fate? The Ilse Witch handed me a scarf. She told me to use my vision by channeling it through that piece of cloth she had stolen from the old woman. I did so, and saw her dead upon her cottage floor, eyes open and staring. The Ilse Witch took back the scarf. Now I had seen for myself. All that was required, once she died, was that I step into her shoes. Why not? I was her former apprentice, the most skilled of all seers next to her. Wasn’t I her logical successor?

“I believed I was, of course, and I was still hurt from her rejection of me. So I agreed to the bargain and let events take their course. The Ilse Witch became my new mentor and friend. I began reporting by carrier bird everything I saw in the village and surrounding countryside. And I waited for the Addershag to die. It took a year, but die she did. She was bitten by a small, deadly snake that nestled in a bag of gold given to her by a patron. It was never clear who that patron was. Her lady servant was gone for a day and a night and found her dead when she returned. She buried her out back and kept the house for herself.”

She sighed. “And I, I became what I had wanted to be, the new Addershag, her successor. Her followers, her patrons, all came now to me, and no one challenged me. I convinced myself that her death had nothing to do with me, that it was simply the result of a vision fulfilling itself, and that I, by not interfering, was behaving just as she had taught me. She would not have listened to me anyway, I thought. There was nothing I could have done to change things.”

She shivered violently, and she hugged her knees more tightly to chase away the chill. “But there is a price for everything, and eventually I found out what it cost to follow the Addershag. The Ilse Witch came to me in response to a vision I had of Walker; I had been told to tell her everything I discovered concerning him. My vision showed him coming to me at night, a dark presence, an irresistible force who would change everything in my life. He came to me to discover what he could of a voyage he wished to make to a new land, of what he would find along the way. He induced my visions by giving me something to touch. It was a map.

“When I told the Ilse Witch of my vision, she became very excited. She wanted that map, and she said I must find a way to steal it for her. But then she changed her mind. Instead of stealing the map, I must insist on going with him. I must convince him I was indispensable so that he would take me. I was to reveal to him what I had seen in my vision and a few things more that she would tell me so that he could not refuse my request. I would be his shadow, and she would be mine. Everywhere I went, everywhere that Walker went, she would track us. She possessed a magic that gave her a way to see through my eyes. She assured me it was necessary that I do this. She insisted that Walker was our common enemy, the enemy of all those possessed of magic in the Four Lands.”

She laughed without humor, without kindness. “I knew enough by then to be wary of such statements. Walker was not my enemy.
He had done nothing to me or to anyone else so far as I knew. But I was in no position to refuse. When I suggested that the task was beyond me, she brushed my concerns aside and warned that it would take only a casual word dropped here or there to make the villagers of Grimpen Ward believe that it was I who had given the bag of gold with the snake in it to the Addershag. Besides, the Ilse Witch was my patron, my mentor. I was afraid of her, but I felt a kinship to her, as well. I agreed to do as she asked. I became her spy aboard the
Jerle Shannara.”

Tears filled her eyes, sudden and unexpected in the wake of her self-reproaching laughter. “But an odd thing happened, Ahren. Something neither she nor I had planned. Even before he came to see me, before I had touched the map or discovered anything more of what the voyage would require, I began to have other visions.” She leaned close to him, the tears spilling down her cheeks. “They were of Walker and me. They were so strong, so overpowering, that I could not ignore them. They were of a blue ocean and of islands, a flying ship, and battles being fought and men dying. It was the voyage Walker sought to make, and I was seeing small parts of it. Most were so vague and jumbled that I could not sort them out, but one was very clear. Of those who traveled with Walker, these would be among them—one who would save his life and one who would try to take it; one who would love him unconditionally and one who would hate him with unmatched passion; one who would lead him astray and one who would bring him back again.”

She paused. “I saw no faces to connect to any of these acts. Only my own, standing outside the vision, watching Walker—always very close, observing and waiting. But for what? I couldn’t tell. Yet I was there each time, shadowing him.”

“But now you know who these people are, who it is who will do these things to Walker,” he interrupted, speaking for the first time, wanting to help her. “Now you can identify each one.”

She laughed anew, and this time her laughter was so bitter and
raw that he flinched from it. Her eyes turned wild, and she tossed back her hair in a defiant gesture. “Oh, yes! Yes, Ahren, I know who these people are! It is so ironic, so fitting! I knew these people from the start, but I didn’t read the vision carefully enough! I was blinded by my own needs and wants and concerns! Who are all these people to Walker, who would take his life and save it, who would lead him astray and bring him back again, who would love and hate him both? Who are they, Ahren? I’ll tell you. They are all the same person. They are all me!”

She seized his arms, gripping him so tightly he could feel her nails digging into his skin. “I did all those things to him and felt those ways about him! I almost caused him to die on Shatterstone by keeping from him that part of my vision that warned of poison thorns, and then I saved him with my empathic talent because I could not bear to let him die! I’ve loved and hated him both, sometimes without quite knowing which was which! He brought me with him when he shouldn’t have, he put me in this terrible, hateful position because he trusts me, and he thinks even now that I will save him from whatever’s trapped him down here! And I will, Ahren! I’ve led him astray so many times I’ve lost count! Each time, he’s found his way back on his own. But this time, this one time, I will be the one to bring him back or I will die trying!”

She was crying so hard she was shaking, racked with sobs, her silvery hair a pale curtain reflecting her tears in threads of gleaming dampness. Her hands loosened their grip on his arms, and he took hold of her in turn, not wanting to break the contact.

“Now you know my secret,” she whispered roughly. “It’s much worse than yours, much uglier. I am consumed by it. I can’t ever be forgiven for what I’ve done. I can’t ever redeem myself.”

He shook his head and bent close. “Everyone can be forgiven, Ryer Ord Star. Of anything and everything. It isn’t always easy, but it is possible.”

She shuddered in response. “Do you want to know something,
Ahren?” Her voice was so small he could barely hear it. “When I used my empathic talent to heal Walker after he was poisoned on Shatterstone, I became linked to him in a way that has never happened before. It was as if our magics joined in some way, and I could see all the way into his soul. It was so painful! I knew that pain was there—I’d seen it in his eyes when we first met, felt it in his hands—but I didn’t realize it was so vast! It overwhelmed me and by doing so, opened me up to him as he had been opened to me. He saw what was hidden inside of me; he saw everything. He knew what I was, what I had come to do. He understood the danger I presented to him and to the others.”

She shook her head in wonderment. “But he kept it all to himself. He never spoke of it. He put it all aside as if it no longer mattered, and he let me stay. I think he hoped that by doing so he would make me an ally instead of an enemy. And he did. I quit doing anything of importance for the Ilse Witch. She could still track the airship’s progress through me, but I guess Walker did not think that was very important. She already knew where we were going; she had read the mind of the castaway to learn what waited. What I would no longer do, what he was counting on me not to do, was to hide any truths from him, any parts of visions experienced, any secrets that might cause him injury. I was his now, willingly. I will be his always, so long as he needs me. Our connection transcends everything. It is strong enough that I feel his need for me, down here in this dark place, in these passageways and chambers, in all this metal. I can feel him reaching out to me, when there is no one else he can touch.” She swallowed her tears. “It is why I go to him now. It is why I have to find him.”