Jarka Ruus (8 page)

“I do,” she agreed. “But if he doesn't, then I will take that as proof of his complicity in whatever has happened and dismiss him along with all of his Trolls. I don't want them guarding the rest of us if they can't do any better job of it than they did with the Ard Rhys.” She paused, a finger lifting to rest lightly on one cheek. “Refusing to come into the Keep suggests he is hiding something, Tagwen. If he isn't, he should tell us so—all of us, who depend on him for our safety. Tell him I said he should explain himself, if he can.”

“Who gave you the right to tell anyone what to do, Shadea a'Ru?” the Dwarf demanded, standing his ground. “You don't command the Druid order.”

She smiled. “Someone has to, in the Ard Rhys' absence. My name has already been put forth. I will serve as best I can, but serve I will. I can do no less.” She looked past him at the empty room. “Go on, Tagwen. Do what I tell you.”

He started to object again, to say something so terrible it would leave no doubt about how he felt. Then he realized that an unguarded response might be exactly what she was hoping for. Something bad was going on, and he was beginning to believe that Shadea had a part in it.

He held his tongue. Better to keep his head. Better to stay free. Someone needed to tell Kermadec what was happening, to warn him of the danger.

Nodding curtly, he went out the door and down the hallway, his eyes downcast, his face flushed. A part of him wanted to run out of there as fast as he could and not come back. He was suddenly afraid, looking about as he went at the faces of those he passed, seeing suspicion and doubt and in some cases outright anger. As Shadea had said, the word was already out. Schemes were being hatched and alliances formed. If the Ard Rhys did not resurface soon, everything was going to go Shadea's way.

On impulse, he made a short detour to the Rock Troll living quarters in the north courtyard and asked one of the watch commanders to bring a dozen of his men to the north gates on orders of the Ard Rhys. The commander did not argue. Tagwen had carried messages of this sort to him before from time to time; there was nothing unusual about this one.

Once outside the walls of the keep, Tagwen went to the edge of the forest and called for Kermadec. He knew the Maturen was camped somewhere just beyond the north gates. Waiting, he rubbed his beard and folded his arms across his burly chest, trying to think what he could do to stop Shadea from taking control.

“Bristle Beard!” Kermadec called with a laugh. His guttural tongue was rough-edged and resonant as he stepped out of the trees and stretched out his hand in greeting. “What's the matter with you? You look as if you swallowed something sour. Could your day be going better, old Dwarf?”

Tagwen clasped hands with the Troll. “It could. But yours isn't looking so good, either.” He glanced quickly over his shoulder. “Better listen carefully to me, Kermadec. I don't know how much time we've got, but it isn't much.”

Quickly, he explained what had happened to the Ard Rhys, then what had brought him down to find Kermadec. The Rock Troll listened silently and without interrupting, then looked up expectantly as his watch commander and a dozen fully armed Trolls appeared through the gates.

“I thought it best that you not be left alone, whatever you decide,” Tagwen explained. “I don't like what's happening in there. Shadea is manipulating things in a way that suggests she intends to take control of the order. When the Ard Rhys reappears, this will stop quick enough, but in the meantime I think you are at some risk.”

The Maturen nodded. “Shadea a'Ru wouldn't dare this if she didn't have reason to believe it would succeed. That isn't good. I don't know what's become of the Ard Rhys, but she hasn't been down here since she went inside after our return. I don't suppose it will hurt to tell you we were in the ruins of the Skull Kingdom, looking into rumors of strange fires and shadow movements. We saw something of them while we were there, a clear indication of magic at work. The Ard Rhys intended to visit the shades of the Druids at the Hadeshorn to ask their advice on the matter. But I don't think she would have gone there without me. Or at least without letting me know.”

“Or me either, though she might not tell me as much as you about what she was doing.” Tagwen looked put-upon. “But she wouldn't just leave.”

“Something has happened to her, then,” Kermadec said, anger reflected in his blunt features. “It may have something to do with what we witnessed in the Knife Edge. Or it may have something to do with what's happening here. I don't trust Shadea or her friends. Or a whole lot of the others, for that matter. Druids in name only, no friends to the Ard Rhys or to the Druid cause.”

Tagwen hugged himself. “I don't know what to do, Kermadec,” he admitted.

The Rock Troll walked over to the watch commander and spoke quietly with him for a moment. The watch commander listened, nodded, and disappeared with his men back inside the walls. Kermadec returned to Tagwen.

“I'm pulling all the Trolls out of the Keep and down to the gates. We will stand watch there for another few days. If the Ard Rhys returns, things can go back to where they were. If she doesn't and we're dismissed, we'll go. As long as we hold the gates, we can keep ourselves safe. Shadea can order us out, but she can't do much more than that.”

“Don't be too sure of that. She has command of powerful magic, Kermadec. Even your Trolls will be at risk.” The Dwarf paused. “You won't go inside, will you? Promise me you won't.”

Kermadec grunted. “Oh, come now, Tagwen. You know what would happen if I did. Shadea and her bunch would have me in irons quicker than you could blink. It would suit them perfectly to announce that I was responsible for the disappearance of the Ard Rhys. Neither truth nor common sense would prove much of an obstacle to the expediency of having me locked up until things could be sorted out. Besides, the matter is likely already decided. I'm to be cast as the villain, even if no proof is ever offered. Wiser heads would prevail in different circumstances, but not here. I told the Ard Rhys she would be better off dismissing the whole lot of them and starting over. But she wouldn't listen. She never does.” He shook his head. “I can't help thinking that her stubbornness has something to do with what's happened to her.”

“I wouldn't argue the point,” Tagwen said. He was wishing he had been more insistent about her precautions while inside the walls. He was wishing he had stayed in her bedchamber last night to keep watch.

“I think I might go back into the ruins of Skull Mountain and take another look around,” Kermadec announced. His blunt features tightened, eyes shifting away from the Dwarf. “I might see something more, might find something. I don't think I can sit around here doing nothing. My men don't need me; they know what to do.”

“You don't want to go into the Skull Kingdom alone,” Tagwen said, shaking his head for emphasis. “It's too dangerous up there. You've said so yourself, many times.”

The Maturen nodded. “Then I won't go alone. I'll take someone with me, someone who's a match for spirits and dark magic. But what about you, Bristle Beard? You can't go back inside, either. Shadea will have you in irons, as well, as soon as she thinks of it. Or worse. You're in some danger, too.”

Tagwen stared at him. He hadn't considered the possibility of anything happening to himself. But he remembered the looks cast his way by some of the Druids he had passed. Anyone capable of making the Ard Rhys disappear wouldn't have much trouble doing the same with him. It might be convenient if he did, given the fact that he was likely to raise a considerable fuss if they tried to name a new Ard Rhys.

Which, he supposed, was exactly what Shadea a'Ru was trying to do right that minute. He was dismayed at the prospect. He could do nothing to prevent it.

“I'll go with you,” he said, not much liking the idea of visiting the Skull Kingdom but liking less the idea of staying on alone at Paranor.

Kermadec shook his head. “I have a better idea. The Ard Rhys has a brother living at a way station called Patch Run on the Rainbow Lake. The family operates an airship service that hires out to fly expeditions into remote regions of the Four Lands. He and his Rover wife are airship pilots.”

“I know,” Tagwen interrupted. “The Ard Rhys told me about them. His name is Bek.”

“The point is, the brother has the use of magic, too. He and his sister are pretty close, even though they don't see all that much of each other these days. Someone ought to tell him what's happened. He might be able to use his magic to find her.”

Tagwen nodded doubtfully. “It's worth a try, I guess. Even if she shows up in the meantime, maybe he can talk some sense into her about what's happening at Paranor. We don't seem to be able to.”

The big Troll reached down and placed his hands on the Dwarf's sturdy shoulders. “Don't be gloomy, old friend. The Ard Rhys has a lot of experience at staying alive.”

Tagwen nodded, wondering if that was what matters had come to, that his mistress was fighting for her life.

“Let's find her,” the Maturen said quietly. “Let's bring her safely home.”

         

Shadea had dismissed the Trolls standing guard at the door of the Ard Rhys' bedchamber and was conducting a thorough search of the rooms, just in case anything incriminating or useful was lying about, when Iridia Eleri appeared. The Elven sorceress's cold, perfect features radiated triumph, and she gave her coconspirator a satisfied nod.

“We have approached them all and won them over, or at least the larger part of them,” Iridia said. “Most have committed to supporting you as temporary Ard Rhys until this matter can be sorted out. Almost all are suspicious of the Trolls, wondering how they could have kept adequate watch and still let this happen. There is enough confusion and doubt that they are ready to blame anyone at whom a willing finger points.” She glanced around. “Have you found anything?”

Shadea shook her head. “Tagwen took her notes when he left to convey my message to Kermadec. I didn't see him do so or I would have stopped him. He may have taken more than that, but it doesn't matter. We have what we want. Neither he nor the Troll will be back inside.”

“Don't be too sure.” Iridia's strange eyes had a hard look to them, as if her thoughts were of darker things still. “The Trolls have withdrawn from the Keep and massed at the gates, taking up watch. It looks like they are expecting trouble, but intend to hold their place for as long as they can.”

Shadea a'Ru nodded slowly, staring back at Iridia, thinking that nothing was easy, not even now. “We'll let them be for the moment. After I've been named Ard Rhys, I'll deal with them myself.”

“Kermadec isn't with them. I don't know where he's gone. Tagwen has disappeared, as well. We might want to think about finding them.” Iridia stepped close, her voice dropping to a near whisper. “We might want to think about another possible hindrance to our plans. Her brother, the one who lives below the Rainbow Lake—if he finds out what has happened, he might decide to do something about it. He has her magic and strong ties with the Rovers. He could cause a lot of trouble for us.”

Sen Dunsidan had said the same thing. For a moment Shadea wondered at the coincidence, then dismissed it as nothing more. It was a logical consideration for all of them, one she might have been too quick to dismiss before.

“Do we know where her brother can be found?”

Iridia nodded. “A way station called Patch Run.”

Shadea took her arm and smiled. “Let's send someone to tell him ourselves.”

Seven

Penderrin Ohmsford came out of his crouch in the forward compartment of the cat-28's starboard pontoon, rocked back on his heels, and surveyed his handiwork. He had just finished resplicing both sets of radian draws off the single mast to stacked sets of parse tubes mounted fore and aft on both pontoons, giving the small sailing vessel almost double the power of anything flying in her class. The stacked tubes were his own design, conceived late one night as he lay thinking about what he might do to make her faster. He was always thinking about ways to improve her, his passion for airships and flying easily a match for that of the other members of his family, and when your uncle was Redden Alt Mer, that was saying something.

He had built the cat two years earlier at the beginning of his apprenticeship with his father. It was the first major project he had undertaken on his own. It was a rite of passage experience that demonstrated he should no longer be considered a boy, although he was still only in his teens. The vessel he chose to construct was a twenty-eight-foot catamaran—thus the cat-28 designation. It was a racing vessel, not a fighting ship, its decking mostly sloped and its gunwales low, its pontoons only slightly curved and lacking rams, and its sleeping compartment set into the decking right below the pilot box and barely large enough to lie down in. Its single mast was rigged with a mainsail and a jib, and all of its spares and gear were stored in holds in the pontoons.

It was a fast ship to begin with, but Penderrin was not the sort to take something as it was and leave it alone. Even with his parents' larger airships, the ones outfitted for long-term expeditions and rough weather, he was always experimenting with ways to make them better. He had been living around airships all his life, and working on them had become second nature. He wished his parents would let him fly more, would give him a chance at the larger ships, especially
Swift Sure
, their favorite, the one they were on now, somewhere out in the Wolfsktaag Mountains. But like all parents, they seemed convinced that it was better to bring him along slowly and to make certain he was old enough before he was allowed to do the things he had learned to do years earlier.

His full name was Penderrin, but everyone called him Pen except for his mother, who insisted on calling him Penderrin because it was the name she had chosen and she liked the sound of it. And his uncle, who called him Little Red, for reasons that had something to do with his mother and their early years together. Pen's long hair was a dusky auburn, a mix between his mother's flaming red tresses and his father's dark ones, so he supposed Little Red was an apt nickname, even if it irritated him to be called something his mother was once called. But he liked his uncle, who his mother had told him to call Big Red, so he was willing to put up with a few things he wouldn't have tolerated otherwise. At least his uncle let him do some of the things his parents wouldn't, including piloting the big airships that flew the Blue Divide. His blue eyes brightened. In another couple of months, he would get a chance to visit Big Red in the coastal town of March Brume and fly with him again. It was something he was looking forward to.

He stood up and surveyed the cat-28 one more time, making sure everything was as it should be. For now, he would have to satisfy himself with flying his single-mast, small to be sure, but quick and sturdy, and best of all,
his
. He would test her out in the morning to make certain the splicings were done properly and the controls for feeding the ambient light down through the radian draws operating as they should. It was tricky business, splitting off draws to channel energy to more than one parse tube, but he had mastered the art sufficiently that he felt confident this latest effort would work.

He glanced at the late afternoon sky, noting that the heavy mist lying over the Rainbow Lake had thickened with the approach of storm clouds out of the north. The sun had disappeared entirely, not even visible as the hazy ball it had been earlier. Nightfall was approaching and the light was failing fast. There would be no sunset this day. If the storm didn't blow through that night, visibility would be down to nothing by morning and he would have to find something to do besides test out his splicing.

“Rat droppings,” he muttered. He didn't like waiting for anything.

He finished putting his tools back into their box and jumped down off the cat-28. It was in dry dock, tethered close to the ground and out of the water until he was ready to take her out for her test run. If a storm was coming, he had to make ready for it, although the cat was secure enough and
Steady Right
, the other big expedition airship, was anchored in a sheltered part of the cove. With his parents gone east, he was responsible for taking care of the airships and equipment until they returned, which wasn't likely to happen for at least another two months. It was all familiar territory to him, though. He had looked after things since he was twelve, and he knew what was needed in almost any situation. What he missed when his parents were away was being out there with them. It reminded him that they still thought of him as a boy.

He carried the toolbox into the work shed and shut and barred the double doors. He was average in size and appearance, neither big nor small, his most striking feature his long auburn hair, which he kept tied back with brightly colored scarves in the Rover fashion. But the commonness of his physical makeup hid an extraordinary determination and an insatiable curiosity. Pen Ohmsford made it a point to find out about things that others simply accepted or ignored and then to learn everything he could and not forget it. Knowledge was power in any world, whether you were fifteen or fifty. The more he knew, the more he could accomplish, and Pen was heavily committed to accomplishing something important.

In his family, you almost had to be—especially if you didn't have the wishsong to fall back on.

He regretted its absence sometimes, but his regret was always momentary. After all, his mother didn't have any magic either; she was beautiful and talented enough that it probably didn't matter. His father rarely used his magic, though he had been born with it and been forced to rely on it extensively before Pen was born.

But his aunt? Well, his aunt, of course, was the Ard Rhys, Grianne Ohmsford, whose use of magic was legendary and who had used it almost every day of her life since the time she had become the Ilse Witch. She was so closely defined by her magic that the two were virtually inseparable.

He knew the stories. All of them. His parents weren't the sort to try to hide secrets about themselves or anyone else in the family, so they talked to him freely about his aunt. He knew what she had been and why. He understood the anger and antipathy her name invoked in many quarters. His uncle Redden would barely give her the time of day, although he had grudgingly admitted once to Pen that if not for her, the remnants of the crew of the
Jerle Shannara
, including himself and Pen's parents, would never have returned alive. His parents were more charitable, if cautious. His father, in particular, clearly loved his sister and thought her misunderstood. But they had chosen different paths in life, and he rarely saw her.

Pen had seen her only twice, most recently when she had come on his birthday to visit the family. Cool and aloof, she had nevertheless taken time to fly with him aboard her airship and talk about his life at Patch Run. She had made a point of asking if he sensed any growth of the wishsong's magic inside his body, but had not seemed disappointed when he told her he didn't. Her own magic was never in evidence. Other people talked about it, but not her. She seemed to regard it as a condition that was best left undiscussed. Pen had respected her wishes, and even now he did not think it was a subject he would talk to her about, ever, unless she brought it up first.

Still, magic's presence marked the history of the Ohmsford family, all the way back to the time of Wil Ohmsford, so it was hard to ignore, whether you had the use of it or not. Pen knew that it tended to skip whole generations of Ohmsfords, so it was not as if he was the first not to possess it. His father said it was entirely possible that it was thinning out in the bloodline with the passage of the years and the increase in the number of generations of Ohmsfords who had inherited it. It might be that it was fading away altogether. His mother said it didn't matter, that there were more important attributes to possess than the use of magic. Pen, she insisted, was the better for not having to deal with its demands and was exactly who he was meant to be.

Lots of talk and reasoning had been given over to the subject, and all of it was meant to make Pen feel better, which mostly he did. He wasn't the sort to worry about what he didn't have.

Except that he didn't have his parents' blessing to go with them on their expeditions yet, and he was getting impatient at being left home in the manner of the family dog.

He walked down to the cove and did a quick check of
Steady Right
, tightening the anchor ropes and cinch lines so that if a blow did materialize, nothing would be lost. He glanced out over the Rainbow Lake when he was finished, its vast expanse stretching away until it disappeared into a haze of clouds and twilight, its colors drained away by the approach of heavy weather. On clear days, those fabled rainbows were always visible, a trick of mist and light. On clear days, he could see through those rainbows all the way to the Runne Mountains. Such days gave him the measure of his freedom. He was allowed the run of the lake, his own private backyard, vast and wonderful, but forbidden to go beyond. His invisible tether stretched to its far shores and not a single inch farther.

He wondered sometimes if he would have been given more freedom if he had been born with the wishsong, but he supposed not. His parents weren't likely to think him any better able to look after himself because he had the use of magic. If anything, they might be even stricter. It was all in the way they saw him. He would be old enough to do the things he couldn't do now when they decided he was old enough and not before.

But then, how old had his father been when he had sailed aboard the
Jerle Shannara
? How old, when he had crossed the Blue Divide to the continent of Parkasia? Not much older than Pen, and his adoptive parents, Coran and Liria Leah, had given him permission to go. Admittedly, the circumstances compelling their agreement had been unusual, but the principle regarding a boy's age and maturity was the same.

Well, that was then and this was now. He knew he couldn't compare the two. Bek Ohmsford had possessed the magic of the wishsong, and without it he probably wouldn't have survived the journey. It made Pen want to know how
that
felt. He would have liked to have the use of the wishsong for maybe a day or two, just to see what it was like. He wondered how it would feel to do the things that his father and aunt could do. Had done. He was curious in spite of himself, a natural reaction to the way things could have been versus the way they were. He just thought it would be interesting to try it out in some way, to put it to some small use. Magic had its attractions, like it or not.

His father talked about it as if possessing it wasn't all that wonderful, as if it was something of a burden. Easy for his father to say. Easy for anyone who had the use of it to say to someone who didn't.

Of course, Pen had his own gift, the one that seemed to have come out of nowhere after he was born, the one that allowed him to connect with living things in a way no one else could. Except for humans—he couldn't do it with them. But with plants and animals, he could. He could always tell what they were feeling or thinking. He could empathize with them. He didn't even have to work at it. He could just pay attention to what was going on around him and know things others couldn't.

He could communicate with them, too. Not speak their language exactly, but read and interpret their sounds and movements and respond in a similar way. He could make them understand the connection they shared, even if he clearly wasn't of their species.

He supposed that could be considered a form of magic, but he wasn't sure he wanted to designate it as such. It wasn't very useful. It was all well and good to know from gulls that a storm front was building in the west or from ground squirrels that a nut source was dwindling or from a beech tree that the soil that fed its roots was losing its nutrients. It could be interesting to tell a deer just by the way you held yourself that you meant no harm. But he hadn't found much point in all that. His parents knew about it, and they told him that it was special and might turn out to be important one day, but he couldn't see how.

His uncle Redden wanted him to read the seas when they went fishing, when they flew out over the Blue Divide. Big Red wanted to know what the gulls and dolphins were seeing that might tell him where to steer. Pen was glad to oblige, but it made him feel a bit like a hunting dog.

He grinned in spite of himself. There was that image again. A dog. The family dog, a hunting dog. Maybe in his next life, that was what he would be. He didn't know if he liked the idea or not, but it was amusing to think about.

The wind was whipping across the lake, snapping the line of pennants attached atop the trees bracketing the cove entrance to measure velocity, a clear indication that a storm was indeed approaching. He was just turning away to go inside when he caught sight of something far out on the water. It was nothing more than a spot, but it had appeared all at once, materializing out of the mist. He stopped where he was and stared at it, trying to decide if it was a boat. It took him several minutes to confirm that it was. Not much of a boat, however. Something like a skiff or a punt, little and prone to capsizing.

Why would anyone be out in a boat like that in such weather?

He waited for the boat to come closer and tried to decide if it was headed for Patch Run. It soon became apparent it was. It skipped and slewed on the roughening waters, a cork adrift, propelled by a single sail and a captain who clearly did not know a whole lot about sailing in good weather, let alone bad. Pen shook his head in a mix of wonder and admiration. Whoever was in that boat wasn't lacking in courage, although good sense might be in short supply.