The Sword of Shannara Trilogy (220 page)

For an instant everything disappeared in smoke and silt. Frantic, Rone scrambled back to his feet.

“Taste a bit of my magic, you worm food!” Cogline was howling in glee. “See what you can do against that!”

He darted past Rone before the highlander could stop him, dancing about in maddened delight, his sticklike form disappearing into the smoke. Whisper’s sudden snarl lifted from somewhere ahead, then Kimber’s sharp cry. Rone swore in fury and leaped forward. Crazy old man!

Directly before him, red fire erupted from the haze. Cogline’s thin form flew sideways as if it were a doll flung by an angry child. The highlander set his teeth and hurtled toward the source of the fire. Almost at once, he came up against the Wraith, its black-cloaked form tattered and bent. The Sword of Leah pierced into a burst of red fire, shattering it apart. The Wraith disappeared. Something moved behind him, and the highlander swung about. But it was Whisper who lunged past through a trailer of smoke, the first of the black things clinging to him, the second borne before him in his teeth. Swiftly, Rone struck, the sword cleaving through the creature that hung upon the moor cat’s back and stripping it from him.

“Kimber!” he screamed.

Red fire exploded close to him, but he caught it again on the sword. A cloaked form appeared momentarily through the smoke, and he lunged at it. This time the Wraith was not quick enough. Backed against the stone stairway of the Croagh, it tried to slip left, with fire bursting from its fingers. Rone was on it at once. The Sword of Leah came down, and the Wraith exploded into a pile of ash.

Everything went still then, save for the low coughing sound Whisper made as he padded ghostlike through the haze toward Rone. Slowly the smoke drifted away and the whole of the ledge and the Croagh became visible once more. The ledge was littered with broken rock, and an entire section of the Croagh where it joined to the ledge—where the Mord Wraith had been standing when Cogline had challenged it—was gone.

Rone glanced quickly about. The Wraith and the black things were gone as well. He wasn’t sure what had happened to them—whether they had been destroyed or merely driven off—but they were nowhere to be seen.

“Rone.”

He whirled at the sound of Kimber’s voice. She appeared from the far side of the ledge, looking small and bedraggled, limping slightly as she came. Anger and relief flooded through him. “Kimber, why in the name of all that’s right and sensible did you . . . ?”

“Because Whisper would have done the same for me. Where is grandfather?”

Rone clamped his mouth shut on the rest of what he would have said to her. Together, they scanned the littered rock shelf. They saw him finally, half buried in a pile of rubble by the cliff side, as blackened as the ash left by the fires of their battle with the Wraith. They hurried to him and lifted him clear. His face and arms were burned, his hair singed, and he was covered with soot. Gently, Kimber cradled the old man’s head. His eyes were closed and he did not appear to be breathing.

“Grandfather?” the girl whispered, her hand on his cheek.

“Who’s that?” the old man cried abruptly, startling both the girl and the highlander. Arms and legs began to thrash. “Get out of my house, trespassers! Get out of my home!”

Then his eyes blinked and opened. “Girl?” he muttered weakly. “What happened to the black things?”

“Gone, grandfather.” She smiled, relief in her dark eyes. “Are you all right?”

“All right?” He looked dazed, but nodded resolutely, his voice becoming stiff with indignation. “Of course I’m all right! Just got a bit ahead of myself, that’s all! Help me up!”

Rone took a deep breath. Lucky to be alive is what you are, old man, you and the girl, he thought grimly.

With Kimber’s aid he pulled Cogline back to his feet and let him test his weight alone. The old man looked like something dredged up from an ash pit, but he seemed uninjured. The girl hugged him warmly and began to brush him off.

“You must be more careful, grandfather,” she admonished. “You are not as quick as you used to be. The walkers will have you if you try to run past them again the way you did here.”

Rone shook his head in disbelief. Who should be scolding whom—the girl the old man or the old man the girl? What had Brin and he been thinking anyway when they . . .

He turned from Kimber and her grandfather and hurried across the rock shelf to where it joined with the steps of the Croagh. He was still gripping the Sword of Leah firmly. How much time had he lost here? He had to catch Brin before she got too far ahead into whatever it was that waited in the valley below . . .

Abruptly, he slowed and stopped. Whisper stood directly in his path, blocking the stairway down. The moor cat stared at him momentarily, then sat back on his haunches and blinked.

“Get out of the way!” Rone snapped.

The cat did not move. The highlander hesitated, then started forward impatiently. Whisper’s muzzle drew back slightly, and a low growl rumbled in his throat.

Rone stopped at once and looked back angrily at Kimber. “Get your cat out of my way, Kimber. I’m going down.”

The girl called softly to the moor cat, but Whisper stayed where he was. Puzzled, she came forward and bent close to him, talking in a low, calm voice, rubbing the massive head about the ears and neck. The cat nuzzled her back and made a soft purring sound, but did not move. Finally, the girl stepped back.

“Brin is well,” she informed him with a brief smile. “She has gone down into the pit.”

Rone nodded with relief. “Then I’ve got to go after her.” But the girl shook her head. “You must remain here, highlander.”

Rone stared. “Remain here? I can’t do that! Brin is all alone down there! I’m going after her!”

But again the girl shook her head. “You cannot. She doesn’t want you doing that. She has used the wishsong to prevent it. She has made Whisper her sentry. No one may pass—not even me.”

“But he’s your cat! Make him move! Tell him that he has to move! The magic isn’t that strong, is it?”

Her pixie face looked up at him calmly. “It is more than the magic, Rone. Whisper’s instincts tell him that Brin is right about this. The magic does not hold him; his reason does. He knows that whatever danger waits in the valley is too great. He will not let you pass.”

The highlander continued to stare at the girl, anger and disbelief flooding his face. His gaze shifted to the giant cat and back again.

What was he supposed to do now?

Euphoria engulfed Brin, sweeping over her in a warm rush, flooding through her as if it were her life’s blood. She felt it carry her down within herself like a tiny leaf borne on the waters of some great river. Sight, sound, and smell meshed and ran in a dazzling mix of wild imaginings, some of beauty and light, some of darkest misshape, all in the ebb and flow of her mind’s eye. Nothing was as it had been, but new and exotic and alive with wonder. It was a journey of self-discovery that transcended thought and feeling and was its own reason for being.

She sang, the music of the wishsong the food and drink that fed her, sustained her, and gave her life.

She was deep within the Maelmord now, far from the stairway of the Croagh and the world she had left behind. It was another world entirely here. As she worked to make herself one with it, it reached out to her and drew her in. Stench, heat, and the rot of living things wrapped about her and found in her their child. Gnarled limbs, vines twisted and mottled, and great stalks of brush and weed stroked her body as she slipped past, feeding on the vibrancy of the music, finding in it an elixir that gave back life. From a great distance away, Brin felt their caress and smiled in response.

It was as if she had ceased to exist. Some tiny part of her knew that she should have been horrified by the things that wound about her and rubbed so lovingly against her. But she was given over to the music of the wishsong now, and she was no longer the one she had been. All of the feelings and reasonings that had been hers, that had made her who she was, were masked away by the dark magic, and she was become a thing like that into which she journeyed. She was a kindred spirit, wandered back from some distant place, the evil within her as strong as the evil she found waiting. She had become as dark as the Maelmord and the life that had been spawned there. She was one with it. She belonged.

A tiny part of her understood that Brin Ohmsford had ceased to exist, made over by the magic of the wishsong. It understood that she had let herself become this other thing—a thing so repulsive that she could not have stood it otherwise—and that she would not come back to herself until she had found her way through to the heart of the evil enfolding her. The euphoria, the exhilaration brought on by the frightening power of the wishsong, threatened to steal her away from herself completely, to strip her of her sanity and make her forever the thing she pretended to be. All the strange and marvelous imaginings were but trappings of a madness that would destroy her. All that remained of the one she once had been was that small bit of self that she still kept wrapped carefully within. All else had become the child of the Maelmord.

The wall of the jungle passed away and came about again, and nothing of it changed. Shadows wrapped close about, as soft as black velvet and as silent as death. The whole of the sky stayed screened away, and only the half-light of night’s coming penetrated beyond the gloom. All the while that she walked in this maze of darkness and stifling heat, the hissing of the Maelmord’s breath lifted from the earth, and the limbs, trunks, stalks, and vines swayed and writhed with the motion. Save for the hissing, there was only silence—intense and expectant. There was no sign of other life—no sign of the walkers, of the dark things that served them, or of the Ildatch that had given them all life.

She went on, driven by that spark of memory she harbored deep within herself. Find the Ildatch, it whispered in its small, empty voice. Find the book of the dark magic. Time fragmented and slipped away until it no longer had meaning. Had she been here an hour? Or more? There was a strange sense of having been here for a very long time, almost as if she had been here forever.

Far distant, almost lost to her in the vast tangle of the jungle, something tumbled from the cliffs above and fell into the pit. She could sense its fall and hear its scream as the Maelmord closed quickly about it, squeezing, crushing, and consuming until the thing was no more. She savored its death, tasted its blood as it was devoured. When it was gone, she longed for more.

Then whispered warnings brushed at her. From a dimly remembered past she saw Allanon once more. Tall and bent, his black hair gone gray, his lean face lined with age, he reached for her across a chasm she could not bridge, and his words were like sprinkled drops of rain upon a window closed before her. Beware. The wishsong is power like nothing I have ever seen. Use it with caution. She heard the words, saw them spatter on the glass and found herself laughing at the way they fell. The figure of the Druid receded and was gone. Dead, now, she reminded herself in surprise. Gone from the Four Lands forever.

She called him back again, as if his reappearance would serve to remind her of something that she had somehow forgotten. He came, sweeping out of the mists, striding across the chasm that had separated them. His strong hands came down gently to rest upon her shoulders. Wisdom and determination reflected in his eyes, and there was a sense of his never having truly left, but his always having been there. This is not a game you play, he whispered. Never that! Beware! And she shook her head. I am savior and destroyer, she whispered back. But who am I? Tell me now! Tell me . . .

A ripple in the fabric of her consciousness swept him away, a ghost, and suddenly she was back within the Maelmord. There was a rumbling of uneasiness within the pit, a tone of dissatisfaction in its hiss. It had sensed a momentary change in her and was disturbed. She reverted instantly to the thing she had created. The wishsong rose and swept into the jungle, soothing it, lulling it once again. The uneasiness and dissatisfaction faded.

She slipped ahead again into the nothingness, letting the Maelmord swallow her up. There was a deepening of shadows and a fading of the light. The breathing of the pit seemed to grow heavier. The sense of kinship that the wishsong created between them tightened and left her breathless with anticipation. She was close now—close to what she sought. The feel of it speared through her like a sudden rush of blood, and she sang with renewed intensity. The magic of the wishsong lifted through the gloom, and the Maelmord shuddered in response.

Then the wall of the jungle fell away, and she stood within a massive, shadowed clearing, wrapped close about by trees, brush, and vines. A tower stood at the center of the clearing, ancient and crumbling, lost in the gloom. Walls of stone rose upward toward the forest roof, forming and reforming in a series of spiraling turrets and notched parapets, as stripped and barren in their look as bleached bones. Nowhere did the foliage of the jungle grow upon the tower. As if its touch meant death, the jungle had passed it by.

Brin stopped, the music of the wishsong lowering to a whisper of expectancy as she stared at the tower.

Here! The heart of the evil is here. The Ildatch!

Drawing close the layers of magic that cloaked her, she went to meet it.

W
ooden doors, weathered and cracked with age, stood ajar at the tower’s dark entry, sagging on hinges broken and rusted with disuse. Wrapped in the music of her song, the Valegirl passed through. The gloom lay thick within, yet there was light enough by which she might see, a dim and misted glimmer that slipped in thin streamers through cracks and splits in the tower’s crumbling walls. Dust carpeted the stone flooring, forming a blanket of fine silt that rose in clouds as the girl’s boots pressed down upon it. It was cool here, the heat and the stench of the jungle somehow locked without.

Brin slowed. A hallway wound ahead into shadow. She turned briefly, a warning tug from deep within her bringing her about to stare guardedly back into the mass of the jungle that walled this tower away.

She went on. The power of the magic stirred through her in a flush of sudden heat, and she seemed to float. She passed down the hallway, following its bends and twists, barely aware of the dust as it rose vaporlike from beneath her feet. Once she thought to wonder how it was that no other footprints save hers marked the corridor she followed when surely the Mord Wraiths, too, had passed this way, but the matter faded quickly from her mind.

Stairs rose before her and she began to climb—a slow, endless climb into the center of the tower. Whispers seemed to call out to her, voices that had no source and no identity, but were born of the very air she breathed. All about her, the whispers called. Shadows and half-light mixed and blended. It seemed as if she were soaking into the stone of the tower itself, slipping ghostlike through its chambers, spreading out to become one with it, as she had become one with the Maelmord. She felt it happen, bit by bit, a welcome drawing in of her body. The magic of the song made it happen, still reaching out to the evil that lay hidden there, insinuating her within as if she were truly one with it . . .

Then the stairway ended and she stood on the threshold of a cavernous, domed rotunda that lay gray, shadowed, and empty. Almost of its own volition, the music of the wishsong faded to a whisper, and the voices in the air about her went still.

She entered the room, barely conscious of the movement of her body, still seeming to float as she passed. Shadows crept back from her, and her eyes adjusted to the light. The chamber was not empty, as she had first thought. There, almost lost in the gloom, was a dais; on the dais was an altar. She came forward a step. Something rested on the altar, huge, squarish, and shrouded in a darkness that seemed to emanate from within. She came forward another step. A fierce excitement flooded through her.

It was the Ildatch!

She knew it instantly, before she was certain what it was that she was seeing. This was the Ildatch, the heart of evil. The power of the wishsong filled her and drove through her body with white-hot intensity.

She crossed the room through the raging of her thoughts, twisting down into herself like a coiled snake. The music of the wishsong became a venomous hiss. The room seemed to draw away from her, the walls receding back into shadow until there was nothing in all the world but the book. She climbed the steps of the dais and strode to where it lay closed upon the altar. It was old and worn, its bindings of copper tarnished to a greenish black and its leather covers cracked and soiled—a huge and monstrous tome that looked as if it might have seen the passing of all the ages of mankind that had ever been.

She hovered over it a moment, staring down expectantly, savoring the deep satisfaction she felt at having the book finally within her grasp.

Then she reached down and her hands closed about it.

—Dark child—

The voice whispered softly within her mind, and her fingers froze upon the tarnished bindings.

—Dark child—

The wishsong died into a whisper and was gone. Her throat constricted and sealed the music away, almost before she knew what it was that she had done. She stood in silence before the altar, hands still clasped tightly upon the book. Echoes of the voice lingered fitfully within her mind, tendrils that reached out and bound her so that she could not move.

—I have been waiting for you, dark child. I have been waiting since first you came into being, a baby from your mother’s womb, Elven magic’s child. Always we have been joined, you and I, by bonds stronger than blood ties, stronger than flesh. Many times we have touched spirit to spirit, and though I never knew you nor knew your way, I knew always that one day you would come—

The voice was flat and toneless, belonging neither to man nor woman, but to something that was both, stripped of all emotion and all feeling, so that there was an emptiness to its whisper that was devoid of life. Brin listened to that voice and went cold to the bone. Deep within, the self that she still sheltered and kept hidden drew back in terror.

—Dark child—

She scanned the shadows of the chamber about her rapidly. Where was the speaker who called to her? What thing was it that held her so? Her eyes shifted in horror to the ancient tome she held. Her fingers were white with the grip they kept, and a burning spread from the leathered bindings.

—I am, dark child. Even as you. I have life. It has always been so. There have always been those who would give me life. There have always been those who would give me theirs—

Brin’s mouth opened, but no sound came forth. The burning sensation spread from her hands into her arms and began to climb.

—Know me. I am the Ildatch, the book of the dark magic, born of the age of faerie. I am older than the Elves—as old as the King of the Silver River, as ancient as the Word. Those who created me, those who gave me form, have long since passed from the land with the coming of the worlds of faerie and Man. Once I was but a part of the Word, hidden from sight and spoken only in darkness. I was but a gathering of secrets. Then the gathering took form, written and studied by those who would know my power. There have always been those who would know my power. Through all the ages, I have been there for them and have given my secrets to those who wished them shared. I have made creatures of magic and given power. But never has there been one such as you—

The words echoed in whispers filled with anticipation and promise, and the Valegirl felt them spin like blown leaves through her mind. The burning was all through her now, a tingling like the rush of heat from a furnace as its door is thrown open.

—There have been many before you. Of the Druids were born the Warlock Lord and the Bearers of the Skull. They found in me the secrets that they sought and became what they would. But I was the power. Of men outcast of the races were born the Mord Wraiths, seeds already sown. But again, I was the power. I am always the power. Each time, there is supreme vision of what must be with the world and with her creatures. Each time, that vision is given shape by the minds of those who would use the power locked within my pages. Each time, the vision proves inadequate and the shaper fails. Dark child, see now a glimpse of what it is that I can offer—

As if of their own volition, Brin’s hands carefully opened the book of the Ildatch, and its parchment leaves began to turn. Words whispered from a text in an alien script and language older than Man, lifting from script to voice, soft and secretive. The Valegirl’s mind opened to them, and comprehension of the text came instantly to her. A touch here, a touch there, the secrets of power were revealed to her, dark and terrible.

Then, as quickly as the revelations had come, they were gone again, lingering on in teasing memories. The pages of the book slipped back again, and the bindings closed. Her hands, still fastened on the massive tome, began to shake.

—Only a whisper of what I am have I shown you. Power, dark child. Power that would dwarf that mastered by the Druid Brona and those who followed him. Power that would render meaningless that of the Mord Wraiths who come to me now. Feel that power rush through you. Feel its touch—

The burning flooded through her. She felt herself expand and grow with its rush.

—For a thousand years, I have been used in ways that would dictate the fate of you and yours. For a thousand years, the enemies of your family have called upon my power and sought to destroy what you would keep. All that has brought you to this place and time has been because of me. I am the maker of what you are; I am the shaper of your life. There is reason in all that happens, dark child, and there is reason in this. Do you sense what that reason is? Look within—

A whisper of warning called suddenly to her, and she seemed to remember a tall, black-robed figure with graying hair and piercing eyes speaking to her of that which would deceive and corrupt. She struggled momentarily with the memory, but no name would come and the vision was obscured by the burning that filled her and the lingering echo of the words of the Ildatch.

—Do you not see yourself? Do you not see what you are? Look within—

The voice was cold, flat, and emotionless still, yet there was an insistence to it that wrenched her thoughts away. Her vision blurred, and she seemed to see from without the thing that she had become through the magic of the wishsong.

We are as one, dark child, just as you have wished. There was never any need for the Elven magic, for you are what you are and always have been. That is why we are joined. There are ties born of the magics that make us what we are, for we are no more than the magics that we harbor—you within your body of flesh and blood, I within mine of parchment and ink. We are lives joined, and what has gone before has brought us to now. It is for this that I have waited all these years—

Lies! The word flashed through Brin’s mind and was lost. Her thoughts spun in confusion, and her reason scattered. Her hands still gripped the Ildatch as if it held her life within, and she found the words spoken by its disembodied voice oddly persuasive. There were indeed ties that bound them; there was a joining. She was like the Ildatch, a part of it, kindred to it.

She called out the name of the Druid in her mind, struggling to find the memory she had now lost. The burning rose in a fierce rush to carry it away, and again the voice spoke.

—All these years I have waited for you, dark child. From time out of time, you have come to me, and now I belong to you. See what must be done with me. Whisper it back to me—

The words came together in her mind, dark against the red haze of her vision. She sought to scream, but the sound constricted in her throat.

—Whisper what must be done with me—

No! No!

—Whisper what must be done with me—

Tears rose to her eyes and trickled slowly down her cheeks.

I must use you, she answered.

Rone stalked from the Croagh in fury, wheeled, and came back again. Both hands gripped the ebony blade of his sword until the knuckles were white.

“Enough is enough—get that cat out of my way, Kimber!” he ordered, coming up next to her and slowing as Whisper’s massive head swung about to face him.

But again the girl shook her head. “I cannot do that, Rone. He uses his own judgment in this.”

“I don’t care a whit about his judgment!” Rone exploded. “He’s only an animal and he can’t make a decision like this! I’m going past him whether he likes it or not! I’m not leaving Brin down in that pit alone!”

Sword lifting, he started for Whisper, but in that instant a deep shudder rippled through the mountain, rising up from the dark jungle of the Maelmord. So strong was the tremor that it staggered the highlander and the girl, causing them to stumble back in surprise. Shaken, they regained their balance and hurried to the edge of the cliffs.

“What’s happened down there?” Rone whispered worriedly. “What’s happened, Kimber?”

“Walkers, I’d guess.” Cogline spit from behind him. “Called up the dark magic to use against the girl, maybe.”

“Grandfather!” Kimber was angry this time.

Rone wheeled in rage. “Old man, if anything has happened to Brin because I’ve been held up here by that cat . . .”

Then he went suddenly still. A line of shadows appeared on the stairway of the Croagh, stooped and shrouded in the fading half-light of the late afternoon. They came one after another, descending from Graymark’s leaden walls, winding their way downward toward the ledge where Rone and his companions waited.

“Mord Wraiths!” the highlander breathed softly.

Already Whisper was turning, wheeling into a crouch as he prepared to defend against them. Cogline’s sudden intake of breath hissed sharply through the silence.

Rone stared upward wordlessly as the line of dark forms lengthened and advanced. There were too many.

“Get behind me, Kimber,” he told her gently.

Then he brought up the sword.

I must use you . . . use you . . . use you.

The words repeated over and over in Brin’s mind, rising in a litany of conviction that threatened to inundate all reason. Yet some tiny semblance of logic remained, screaming at her through the words of the chant.

It is the dark magic, Valegirl! It is the evil that you have come into this place to destroy!

But the touch of the book against the skin of her hands and the burning it brought to her body held her bound so that nothing else could hold sway. Again the voice came to her, wrapping close about.