Jarka Ruus

  She laughed in spite of herself. “You seem awfully concerned about being tricked. Why would that be, I wonder? A guilty conscience, perhaps?”

  His eyes were furious. “I have a right to look out for myself! Strakens are not to be trusted!”

  “I am not a Straken, Weka Dart,” she said again. “I’ve told you that already. Pay attention to me this time. Look at me. I am not a Straken. I am an Ard Rhys. Say it.”

  He did so, rather reluctantly. He seemed determined that whether she admitted it or not, she was a Straken and not to be trusted, which made it odd that he had chosen to ally himself with her. Or rather, she corrected, choose her as a traveling companion. Clearly, if he felt as he did about Strakens, he would not travel with her if he could avoid it. It made her wonder what he was after.

  “I should cover our tracks before the big things start to hunt,” he announced suddenly, and disappeared down the trunk of the tree before she could stop him.

  He was gone a long time, and when he returned he was gnawing on something he held in one hand. It was hard to tell what it might have been, but it looked as if it was the remains of a ferret or rat. All that was left were the hindquarters. There was blood on the Ulk Bog’s mouth and face, and a wicked glint in his eyes. “Tasty,” he said.

  “You look happy enough,” she observed, meeting his challenging stare. She had seen much worse than this, if he thought to shock her.

  “Fresh meat,” he declared. “Nothing already dead. I’m no scavenger.”

  He consumed what was left with relish, teeth tearing the raw meat into bite-size shreds that he quickly gulped down. Finished, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, licked his fingers, and belched. “Time for sleep,” he announced.

  He stretched himself out on one of the limbs, looking as if sleep would come easily. “Where are your people, Weka Dart?” she asked him, too uncomfortable herself even to think of sleeping.

  “Back where I came from. Still living in their burrows. They are a shortsighted, unimaginative bunch. Not like me. That’s why I left. I decided there was more for me in life than burrows and roots. But not if I remained with them.”

  What a liar, she thought. Even the way he spoke the words gave him away. He must think she would believe anything. It made her angry. “Where is it you intend to go?” she pressed, keeping her anger carefully hidden.

  He smacked his lips. “Oh, that’s for me to know. I have plans for myself. I may tell you when I get to know you better.”

  “Won’t you be missed?” She had put up with this Ulk Bog’s deceptions long enough and had decided to do something about it. He was relaxed and unsuspecting. It was a good time to teach him a lesson. She began to hum softly, bringing up the magic of the wishsong and layering it about him. “Parents? Brothers and sisters?”

  He shrugged, yawned. “No family. No friends, either, for that matter. Not ones I care about leaving behind. Ulk Bogs are a stupid lot, most of them. Can’t see beyond their ground roots and mushrooms.”

  “Roots can be tender and mushrooms sweet,” she ventured, the magic beginning to insinuate itself into his thinking. “You were quick enough to bring them to me. Why don’t you eat them?”

  He laughed foolishly, the magic taking hold. He had no defense against it. A Druid would have brushed her efforts aside effortlessly, but Weka Dart didn’t even know what she was doing to him. “I could tell you were the sort that ate roots and berries. Not me. I need meat, fresh meat. Keeps me strong. Makes me dangerous!”

  She had a strong hold over him now, so she began to press harder. “Not eating roots was what got you in trouble in the first place, wasn’t it?” she asked, guessing at the truth, reading it in his poor attempt at lying. “What sort of fresh meat did you eat? It must have been something that was forbidden to Ulk Bogs.”

  “More foolishness!” he snapped defensively. “What difference did it make? They weren’t even ours! They were tender, and I only ate a few! There were plenty more where those came from! But you would have thought I had eaten my own children!”

  “Instead of someone else’s?”

  “Another tribe’s offspring, useless to everyone! Weren’t even missed for a long time!”

  “But when they were missed? . . .”

  “All my fault, not even a chance at an explanation!”

  “So they drove you out.”

  “I left before they could. It was clear what they intended for me, and I saw no reason to endure it. Stupid burrow people! Rodents! They are food for bigger things themselves, little more than rats to dragons and ogres and such! If you don’t want to be prey, you have to be predator! I told them this, I told them! What good did it do? What reward did I get? A promise of punishment if I stayed and no more babies to eat. Impossible! I had a taste for them by then. I couldn’t give them up just because the others didn’t feel the same way I did!”

  He stopped suddenly and stared at her, wild-eyed. “Why did I tell you that? I didn’t want to tell you that! Not any of it! But I did! How did that happen? What did you do to me?”

  “I helped you come to terms with the truth, little man,” she said softly. “I don’t like liars and deceivers. I was one myself, and I know them for what they are. You were perfectly willing for me to believe that you are traveling about to see the world. But the truth is that you are running away, perhaps from other Ulk Bogs searching for you because you ate their babies. You want me to protect you, but you don’t want to tell me why. All this talk about my tricking you has got to do mostly with you tricking me.”

  “You used magic on me! You are a Straken, just as I said!”

  “I am not a Straken . . .”

  But Weka Dart was having none of it. He was so incensed he didn’t even try to listen to the rest of what she was going to say, leaping to his feet, hissing and spitting like a scorched cat, and baring his teeth at her as if to attack. Then down the tree trunk he skittered, still raging at her, leaping away with a final epithet and disappearing into the dark.

  She waited for him to return, unable to believe that he wouldn’t. Staying with her seemed too important for him to allow his pride to stand in the way. But after a while, when he failed to reappear, she gave up listening for him, deciding that she was better off without him in any case. Anything that would eat its own kind, whatever the reason, was not suitable company. If he stayed, she would have to watch him every minute, always wondering when he might turn on her. Let him go off on his own and be done with it.

  But in the ensuing silence, she became aware again of how different she felt inside the Forbidding. For as much as that world resembled the one she had come from, it was not the same. Where before she had always been comfortable in the darkness, here she was uneasy. The night had a decidedly different feel. Smells, tastes, and sounds were just strange enough to bother her, to make her think that she must watch her every step. She was convinced she could make her way to that world’s version of the Hadeshorn, if it existed, and attempt a summoning of the shades of the Druids. But was she ready for the things she might meet along the way? It was one thing to face down a Dracha, but another altogether to stand against a pack of Furies. She was powerful in her world, but how powerful was she in the Forbidding?

  She stared out into the blackness, not at all certain she wanted to find out the answer.

  Twelve

  “Concentrate,” he said, his disembodied voice coming from just over her left shoulder, soft and reassuring. “Remember what you are trying to do. Slow and steady. Keep the air moving at the same speed all the time. Breathe through your mind as well as your lungs.”

  She thought that an odd, but accurate way of expressing what was needed, and she did her best to comply. Using her skills, she exhaled and then blew the air in a steady, concentrated stream across the clearing to the leaf that hung suspended midair twenty yards away. She watched the leaf hover like a bug, vibrating slightly in response to the gentle currents, reacting to the fingers of magic she was using to control it.
A small skill, in the larger scheme of things, but one that took her farther than she had gone before. She was getting better at using the magic, at perfecting the Druidic talents he sought to teach her, but she was still not as good as either of them wanted her to be.

  “Now, lift gently,” Ahren Elessedil instructed, still keeping out of her line of sight, not wishing to distract her any more than was necessary. He understood the delicacy of what she was doing. He preferred that she learn the sophisticated maneuvers first. The ones that relied on power and weight would come later and more easily.

  Khyber Elessedil moved the leaf higher, taking it up another two feet until it was well out of reach of anyone standing under it. It was harder keeping it aloft, the wind currents stronger at the increased height, the force of gravity working with more insistence. She felt impatient with the exercise, as she did with so many, but she was determined to succeed. It was not easy for the daughter and sister of Elven Kings to persevere, knowing it would be much easier simply to accept the path her father, and now her brother, had laid out for her. But though she was born into the royal family, she had never felt a part of court life, and she did not think that was likely to change.

  A bird flew by, bright orange and black-tipped at its wings and beak. Distracted by its beauty, she lost her concentration, and the leaf fluttered to the earth and lay still.

  Her uncle came up beside her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “He was beautiful, wasn’t he? Such a brilliant orange.”

  She nodded, angry and disappointed with herself. “I’ll never learn anything if I keep letting myself be distracted by beautiful birds!”

  “You’ll never find any joy in life if you don’t.” He came around and stood facing her. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. This takes time. It takes practice. I didn’t learn it all at once either.”

  Warmed by his reassurances, she smiled in spite of herself. They were remarkably alike in personality, both possessed of quiet determination and strong emotions. Their dark features and hair gave them a similar appearance as well, and of late Khyber was as tall as her uncle, having grown the past year, edging toward womanhood, toward the marriageable age her brother welcomed and she loathed. Fine for him to want to marry her off so that she would be out of his hair, but that didn’t make it right for her. She loved her brother, but he was nothing like her. In fact, aside from her mother, the member of the family she was closest to was standing right in front of her.

  No one wanted to hear that, of course, since her uncle was not welcome in Arborlon. He had become, over the course of the years, the member of the family that the others were ashamed to acknowledge. They would have locked him away if he had been foolish enough to try to make a life with them, but Ahren Elessedil had decided to go another way a long time ago.

  He patted her shoulder and glanced at the sky through the heavy canopy of tree limbs. “Midday. Why don’t we have something to eat before we continue? It is easier to concentrate when your stomach isn’t rumbling.”

  Which hers was, she realized with embarrassment. Sometimes she could barely tolerate herself, a vessel for shortcomings and ungovernable urges that betrayed her at every turn.

  She followed him back through the woods to the village, her strides matching his, thinking that food would be good and his company over a glass of ale even better. She loved talking with her uncle—just talking with him. He was so interesting; he had done so many things in his life. He was not yet forty, and he was recognized everywhere as a Druid of immense importance and power. The Ard Rhys herself considered him indispensable, and she had visited him many times over the years, although Khyber had never been fortunate enough to be present when she did. Ahren Elessedil had sailed on the Jerle Shannara with the Ard Rhys, her brother Bek, and a handful of others whose names were now legendary. He had been one of the fortunate ones to survive. If not for him, the Ard Rhys might have failed in her efforts to restore the Druid Council at Paranor. It was his support of Grianne Ohmsford that had cost Ahren his place at court, that had earned him rebuke and exile from first his brother and now his brother’s son. He had deserved neither, in her opinion, but she was alone in her support and was herself increasingly isolated by the male members of the Elessedil house.

  Well, it hardly mattered in her uncle’s case, given the use to which he had put his life. He had gone to Paranor with the first of the new Druids and studied the Druidic arts with the Ard Rhys. He was not blessed with natural talent, his sole use of magic previously confined to the Elfstones he had retrieved on his long-ago voyage. But he was a quick study and had an affinity for tapping into earth magic, which was at the heart of all Druid studies. He learned quickly, becoming strong enough to take his talent back into the Westland fifteen years ago, to the village of Emberen, where he had devoted his life to caring for the land and its people. He was good at what he did, and all had benefited greatly, no matter what the others in her family thought.

  The problem, of course, was that none of them could get past what they perceived as Ahren’s betrayal of his father, who had died at the hands of assassins dispatched by the Ard Rhys, when she was still the Ilse Witch. They could not forgive Ahren for tricking his elder brother, who became King afterwards, into sending Elves to serve as Druids under the woman who had killed their father. That he would be a part of such subterfuge, knowing as he did the truth of things, proved to be incendiary, once it was discovered. An order of exile was issued immediately, and all were forbidden even to speak his name. By then, he was already gone, of course, studying with the Ard Rhys and those he had brought to serve her, the first of many who would come to Paranor. Even the fact that the Ard Rhys had been transformed so utterly by the power of the Sword of Shannara made no difference to the Elessedils. Nothing would satisfy them, short of seeing her dead and gone. That would change when enough time had passed and enough new Kings had ascended the Elessedil throne, but change of that sort was very slow.

  “How much longer will you be able to stay with me?” Ahren asked her suddenly.

  She laughed. “Anxious for me to be gone, now that you’ve seen how inept I am?”

  “You have put your finger on it,” he agreed. “Nevertheless, I am concerned about your brother’s response to your increasingly frequent visits.”

  Kellen hated her visits to Emberen, but even as King he could not do much to prevent them. She had told him as much, suggesting that he had enough to worry about with the war on the Prekkendorran. He had inherited the war after their father was killed, and Kellen had made it his life’s mission to see it concluded with a Free-born victory—something that at present looked none too likely. Between governing the Elves and waging his pet war, Kellen had little time for her. She knew he hated his uncle, but he ignored Ahren because it was easier than taking more direct action. Of course, Kellen didn’t yet realize the nature of her visits. If he discovered what she was up to—or, more to the point, when he discovered it—he would put a stop to things in a heartbeat. But by then, she hoped, she would be a student at Paranor and beyond his reach. She hadn’t told her uncle yet, but she thought he must suspect as much. She was not in line for the throne, since her brother had produced male heirs and the line of succession ran down the male side of the family ladder until it stopped and females were all that were left. So it shouldn’t matter to the rest of her family what she did so long as she stayed out of the way.

  For the moment, she was willing to accept that compromise, having little interest in Arborlon and family in any event, though there were times when her resolve was sorely tested.

  “My brother is off visiting the Prekkendorran,” she said, brushing Ahren’s concerns aside. “He gives little thought to me. For the most part, he doesn’t even know where I am. He doesn’t know now, as a matter of fact.”

  Ahren looked at her. “Does anyone?”

  “Mother.”

  He nodded. “Your passion for the Druidic arts, for elemental magic’s secrets, can’t sit well with her. She sees you ma
rried and producing grandchildren.”

  Khyber grunted. “She sees poorly these days. But then I don’t do much to enlighten her. She would only worry, and Kellen gives her reason enough for that. Besides, she has grandchildren—my brother’s sons, good, stout, warrior lads, all three. They fill her grandmotherly needs nicely.”

  They walked into the village and down the single road that formed its center, to Ahren’s small cottage at the far end. He had built it himself and continued to work on it from time to time, telling her he found working with his hands relaxing. He kept a project in the works at all times, the better perhaps to get through the demands of his service to the Westland. At present, he was installing a new roof, a shingle-shake overlay that required hand-splitting new shingles to replace the old. It was taxing and time-consuming, which she supposed was just what he wanted.

  They sat at a small outdoor table in the sunlight and ate cheese, apples, and bread washed down with cold ale from his earth cellar. Food and drink always tasted better in Emberen than at home. It had to do with the company, but also with the life of the village. In Emberen she was just Khyber to everyone she knew, not Princess or Highness or some other deferential term. Nothing was expected of her save common courtesy and decent manners. She was just like everyone else, or as much so as was possible in a world of inequities.

  Her command of the Druid magic set her apart, of course, just as it did Ahren. Well, not as much so as Ahren, who was more highly skilled in its use. But the point was that the villagers regarded the use of elemental magic as a trade, a craft of great value and some mystery but, ultimately, of much good. Her uncle had never done anything to persuade them otherwise, and she intended to follow in his steps. She knew the history of magic in the Four Lands, both within and without the family. All too often, magic had caused great harm, sometimes unintentionally. In many places, it was still mistrusted and feared. But with the formation of the new Druid Council, the Ard Rhys had mandated that magic’s use embody caution and healing in order for it to be sanctioned. In spite of her checkered past—or perhaps because of it—she had dedicated the Druid order to that end. Khyber had witnessed the results of that commitment in the nature of the service undertaken by Druids like her uncle, who had left Paranor and gone out into the Four Lands to work with its people. The effect of their efforts was apparent. Slowly, but surely, the use of elemental magic was being accepted everywhere.