The Druid of Shannara (19 page)

He looked at her and nodded. A measure of determination returned. “We will not speak of the Grimpond’s vision again,” he promised.

“Not until there is need,” she replied.

She took him by the arm and led him back through the darkened forest to sleep.

P
ar Ohmsford’s strength returned to him slowly. Two weeks passed while he lay bedded in the Mole’s underground lair, a gaunt and motionless skeleton draped in old linen, dappled by a mingling of shadows and candlelight, and surrounded by the strange, changeless faces of the Mole’s adopted children. Time had no meaning at first, for he was lost to anything remotely connected with the real world. Then
the madness faded, and he began to come back to himself. The days and nights took on definition. Damson Rhee and the Mole became recognizable. The blur of darkness and light sharpened to reveal the shapes and forms of the subterranean rooms in which he rested. The stuffed castoffs grew familiar once more, button noses and eyes, thread-sewn mouths, worn cloth limbs and bodies. He was able to give them names. Words assumed meaning out of idle talk. There was nourishment and there was sleep.

Mostly, though, there were the memories. They tracked him through sleep and waking alike, wraiths that hovered at the edge of his thoughts, anxious to sting and bite. There were memories of the Pit, the Shadowen, Rimmer Dall, and the Sword of Shannara, but mostly of Coll.

He could not forgive himself. Coll was dead because of him—not simply because he had struck the fatal blow, the killing stroke of his wishsong’s magic, not because he had failed to adequately protect his brother from the packs of Shadowen that roamed the Pit while he was engaged with Rimmer Dall, not for any of this, but because he had from the first, from the moment they had fled Varfleet and the Seekers, thought only of himself. His need to know the truth about the wishsong, the Sword of Shannara, the charges of Allanon, the purpose of the magic—this was what had mattered. He had sacrificed everything to discover that truth, and in the end that sacrifice had included his brother.

Damson Rhee strove mightily to persuade him otherwise, seeing his torment and instinctively recognizing its cause.

“He wanted to be there with you, Par,” she would tell him, over and over, her face bent close, her red hair tumbling down about her slender shoulders, her voice soft and gentle. “It was his choice. He loved you enough that it could not have been otherwise. You did your best to keep him from coming, to keep him safe. But there was that in Coll that would not be compromised. A sense of what’s right, what’s necessary. He was determined to protect you from the dangers you both knew waited. He gave his life to keep you safe, don’t you see? Don’t be so quick to steal away what that sacrifice meant by insisting it was your fault. There were choices and he made them. He was strong-willed, and you could not have changed his mind even had you tried harder than you did. He understood, Par. He recognized the purpose and need in what you do. You believed that was
true before; you must believe it now. Coll did. Don’t let his death have been for nothing.”

But Coll’s death might have been for exactly that, he feared, and the fear chased after him in his darkest thoughts. Exactly what had his brother’s death accomplished? What did he have to show for it? The Sword of Shannara? Yes, he had gained possession of the legendary blade of his Elven-blooded ancestors, the talisman the shade of Allanon had sent him to find. And what use was it? It had failed utterly as a weapon against Rimmer Dall, even after the First Seeker had revealed himself as a Shadowen. If the Sword was a necessary magic as Allanon had claimed, why hadn’t it destroyed his greatest enemy? Worse, if Dall were to be believed, the Sword of Shannara could have been his simply for the asking. There was no need for their agonizing, destructive descent into the Pit—no need, then, for the death of Coll.

And no purpose to it either if Rimmer Dall was right about one thing more—that Par Ohmsford, like himself, was a Shadowen. For if Par were the very thing they were fighting to protect the Four Lands against …

If Coll had died to save a Shadowen …

Unthinkable? He was no longer sure.

So the memories plagued him, bitter and terrible, and he was awash in a slew of anguish and disbelief and anger. He fought through that morass, struggled to keep himself afloat, to breathe, to survive. The fever disappeared, the starkness of his emotions softened, the edges dulled, and the aching of his heart and body scarred and healed.

He rose at the end of the two weeks’ time, determined to lie about no longer, and began to walk short distances within the Mole’s dark quarters. He washed at the basin, dressed, and took his meals at the table. He navigated the lair end to end, doorway to doorway, testing himself, feeling his way through his weakness. He pushed back the memories; he kept them carefully at bay. He did so mostly through simple motion. Doing something, anything, helped to keep him from dwelling so much on what was over and done. He made note of the smells and tastes that hung upon the trapped air. He studied the texture of the ruined furniture, of the various discards of the upper world, and of the walls and floors themselves. His resolution stiffened. He was alive and there was a reason for it. He shifted in and out of the candlelight and shadows, a ghost impelled by an inner vision.

Even when he was too tired to move about further he was
reluctant to rest. He spent hours seated on the edge of his bed examining the Sword of Shannara, pondering its mystery.

Why had it failed to respond to him when he had touched its blade to Rimmer Dall?

“Is it possible,” Damson asked him at one point, her voice cautious, “that you have been deceived in some way and that this is not the Sword of Shannara?”

He thought carefully before he answered. “When I saw it in the vault, Damson, and then when I touched it, I knew it was the Sword. I was certain of it. I have sung the story of it so many times, pictured it so often. There was no doubt in my mind.” He shook his head slowly. “I still feel it to be so.”

She nodded. She was seated next to him on the bed, legs folded beneath her, green eyes intense. “But your anticipation of finding it might have colored your judgment, Par. You might have wanted it so badly that you allowed yourself to be fooled.”

“It might have happened like that, yes,” he agreed. “Then. But now, as well? Look at the blade. See here. The handle is worn, aged—yet the blade shines like new. Like Morgan’s sword—magic protects it. And see the carving of the torch with its flame …”

His enthusiasm trailed off with a sigh. He saw the doubt mirrored in her eyes. “Yet it doesn’t work, it’s true. It doesn’t do a thing. I hold it, and it seems right, what it should be—and it doesn’t do anything, give back anything, or let me feel even the slightest hint of its magic. So how can it be the Sword?”

“Counter-magic,” the Mole said solemnly. He was crouched in a corner of the room close to them, almost invisible in the shadows. “A mask that hides.” He stretched his face with his hands to change its shape.

Par looked at him and nodded. “A concealment of some kind. Yes, Mole. It might be. I have considered the possibility. But what magic exists that is strong enough to suppress that of the Sword of Shannara? How could the Shadowen produce such a magic? And if they could, why not simply use it to destroy the blade? And shouldn’t I be able to break past any counter-magic if I am the rightful bearer of the Sword?”

The Mole regarded him solemnly, voiceless. Damson gave no reply.

“I don’t understand,” he whispered softly. “I don’t understand what’s wrong.”

He wondered, too, at how willingly Rimmer Dall had let him depart with the Sword. If it were truly the weapon it was supposed
to be, the weapon that could destroy the Shadowen, Dall would surely not have let Par Ohmsford have it. Yet he had given it to the Valeman without argument, almost with encouragement in fact, telling him instead that what he had been told of the Shadowen and the Sword was a lie.

And then virtually proved it by demonstrating that the touch of the Sword would not harm him.

Par wandered the Mole’s quarters with the blade in hand, hefting it, balancing it, working to invoke the magic that lay within. Yet the secret of the Sword of Shannara continued to elude him.

Periodically Damson left their underground concealment and went up into the streets of Tyrsis. It was odd to think of an entire city existing just overhead, just beyond sight and sound, with people and buildings, sunlight and fresh air. Par longed to go with her, but she wisely counseled against it. He lacked strength yet for such an undertaking, and the Federation was still searching.

A week after Par had left his sickbed and begun moving about on his own, Damson returned with disquieting news.

“Some weeks ago,” she advised, “the Federation discovered the location of the Jut. A spy in the outlaw camp apparently betrayed it. An army was dispatched from Tyrsis to penetrate the Parma Key and lay siege. The siege was successful. The Jut fell. It was taken close to the time, Par, when you escaped the Pit.” She paused. “Everyone found there was killed.”

Par caught his breath. “Everyone?”

“So the Federation claims. The Movement, it says, is finished.”

There was momentary silence. They sat at the Mole’s long table surrounded by his voiceless, unseeing children, saucers and cups set before them. It had become a midafternoon ritual.

“More tea, lovely Damson?” the Mole asked softly, his furry face poking up from the table’s edge. She nodded without taking her eyes from Par.

Par frowned. “You don’t seem distressed by this,” he responded finally.

“I think it odd that it took weeks for word of this victory to reach the city.”

“So it isn’t true, then?”

She bit into one of the crackers that the Mole had provided for them and chewed. “It may be true that the Jut was taken. But I know Padishar Creel. It doesn’t seem likely that he would
let himself be trapped in his own lair. He’s much too clever for that. More to the point, friends of the Movement here in the city with whom I spoke tell me that line soldiers with the army claim they killed almost no one, several dozen at most, and those were already dead when the Jut’s summit was breached. What happened, then, to the others? There were three hundred men in that camp. Besides, if the Federation really had Padishar Creel, they’d spike his head atop the city gates to prove it.”

“But there’s no message from Padishar?”

She shook her head.

“And no word of Morgan or Steff or any of the others?”

She shook her head again. “They’ve vanished.”

“So.” He let the word hang.

She smiled ruefully. They finished their tea without speaking.

The following day, his body stronger, his mind determined, Par again announced that he wanted to go up into Tyrsis. He had been shut away long enough; he needed to see something of his own world again. He needed to feel sunlight on his skin and breathe fresh air. Besides, as long as he remained hidden away, nothing was being accomplished. It was time for him to
do
something.

Damson objected strongly, pointing out that he was not yet fully recovered and that it was extremely dangerous for him to go anywhere. The Federation knew who he was now; his description was everywhere. After his escape from the Pit, Seekers had begun searching the lower levels of the old palace and discovered the tunnels leading in. Now they were searching the tunnels as well. There were miles of tunnel and sewer to search, but the risk of discovery remained. For now, it was best to lie low.

In the end, they compromised. Par would be allowed to go into the tunnels close at hand as long as he was in the company of Damson or the Mole. He would not go aboveground, even for a moment. He would go where he was told and do what he was advised. But at least he would be out of his sickrooms. Par agreed.

He began his exploration eagerly, studying the lay of the tunnels as he trailed after Damson and the Mole, mapping it all out carefully in his mind. He tired quickly the first day and had to return early. He was stronger the second and continued to improve. He began to grow comfortable with his understanding of how the tunnels and sewers wove together—enough so that he believed he could find his way to the surface on his own should
the need arise. The Mole advised him cautiously, watched him with intense, glittery eyes, and nodded in satisfaction. Damson stayed close, her hands constantly touching him, as if to shield against danger. He smiled inwardly at their protectiveness.

A week passed away. He was much better now, almost completely recovered. More than a month had elapsed since he had been carried beneath the city of Tyrsis and placed in hiding. He thought constantly of leaving, of picking up again the threads of his life.

At the same time he found himself wondering where he would begin.

In the end the decision was made for him.

It was late afternoon ten days after he had begun his exploration of the tunnels surrounding the Mole’s lair. He was seated on the edge of his bed, once again examining the Sword of Shannara. Damson had gone up to the city to see what news she could learn of Padishar and the Federation. The Mole was a furtive shadow as he passed from room to room, straightening, arranging, and fussing with his possessions. Teatime had come and gone without the girl, and the Mole was unsettled. Par might have been if he had allowed himself to dwell on the matter, but as it was he was consumed with something else. His memory of the events surrounding the discovery of the Sword of Shannara and the death of Coll was still incomplete, the fragments piecing themselves back in place only intermittently as he recovered to form a complete picture. Now and then a new piece would recall itself. One did so now.

It had to do with the wishsong, actually. He remembered all too clearly how his magic had gathered within him, summoned on its own almost, when Coll—the thing that had been Coil—threatened him. Then, after Coll was gone and the others of the Shadowen in the Pit came for him, the wishsong had given him a flaming sword, a weapon unlike anything the magic had ever produced. It had destroyed the Shadowen effortlessly. For a few moments he had been possessed, infused with fury and madness, driven beyond any semblance of reason. He remembered how that had felt. But there was something more, something he had forgotten completely until now. When the Shadowen were destroyed and he had reached down to retrieve the Sword of Shannara from where it had fallen, the Sword had burned him—had seared his hand like fire. And instantly his own magic had died, and he had been unable to summon it again.