The guards glanced at one another as the gravedigger trudged up to them, his charge wheeled negligently before him, rolling and bouncing.
“Hot one for work, isn’t it, sirs?” the gravedigger wheezed, and the guards flinched in spite of themselves from the stench of him.
“Papers,” said one perfunctorily.
“Sure, sure.” One ragged hand passed over a document that looked as if it had been used to wipe up mud. The gravedigger gestured at the body. “Got to get this one in the ground quick, don’t you know. Won’t last long on a day such as this.”
One of the guards stepped close enough to prod the corpse with the point of his sword. “Easy now,” the gravedigger advised. “Even the dead deserve some respect.”
The soldier looked at him suspiciously, then shoved the sword deep into the body and pulled it out again. The gravedigger cackled. “You might want to be cleaning your sword there, sir—seeing as how this one died of the spotted fever.”
The soldier stepped back quickly, pale now. The others retreated as well. The one holding the gravedigger’s papers handed them hastily back and motioned him on.
The gravedigger shrugged, picked up the handles of the cart and wheeled his body down the long ramp toward the plain below, whistling tunelessly as he went.
What a collection of fools, Padishar Creel thought disdainfully to himself.
When he reached the first screening of trees north, the city of Tyrsis a distant grayish outline against the swelter, Padishar eased the handles of the cart down, shoved the body he had been hauling aside, took out an iron bar and began prying loose the boards of the cart’s false bottom. Gingerly, he helped Morgan extricate himself from his place of hiding. Morgan’s face was pale and drawn, as much from the heat and discomfort of his concealment as from the lingering effects of last night’s battle.
“Take a little of this.” The outlaw chief offered him an aleskin, trying unsuccessfully not to look askance. Morgan accepted the offering wordlessly. He knew what the other was thinking—that the Highlander hadn’t been right since their escape from the Pit.
Abandoning the cart and its body, they walked a mile further on to a river where they could wash. They bathed, dressed in clean clothes that Padishar had hidden with Morgan in the cart’s false bottom, and sat down to have something to eat.
The meal was a silent one until Padishar, unable to stand it any longer, growled, “We can see about fixing the blade, Highlander. It may be the magic isn’t lost after all.”
Morgan just shook his head. “This isn’t something anyone can fix,” he said tonelessly.
“No? Tell me why. Tell me how the sword works, then. You explain it to me.” Padishar wasn’t about to let the matter alone.
Morgan did as the other asked, not because he particularly wanted to, but because it was the easiest way to get Padishar to stop talking about it. He told the story of how the Sword of Leah was made magic, how Allanon dipped its blade in the waters of the Hadeshorn so that Rone Leah would have a weapon with which to protect Brin Ohmsford. “The magic was in the blade, Padishar,” he finished. He was having trouble being patient by now. “Once broken, it cannot be repaired. The magic is lost.”
Padishar frowned doubtfully, then shrugged. “Well, it was lost for a good cause, Highlander. After all, it saved our lives. A good trade any day of the week.”
Morgan looked up at him, his eyes haunted. “You don’t understand. There was some sort of bond between us, the sword and me. When the sword broke, it was as if it was happening to me! It doesn’t make any sense, I know—but it’s there anyway. When the magic was lost, some part of me was lost as well.”
“But that’s just your sense of it now, lad. Who’s to say that won’t change?” Padishar gave him an encouraging smile. “Give yourself a little time. Let the wound heal, as they say.”
Morgan put down his food, disinterested in eating, and hunched his knees close against his chest. He remained quiet, ignoring the fact that the outlaw chief was waiting for a response, contemplating instead the nagging recognition that nothing had gone right since their decision to go down into the Pit after the missing Sword of Shannara.
Padishar’s brow furrowed irritably. “We have to go,” he announced abruptly and stood up. When Morgan didn’t move right away, he said, “Now, listen to me, Highlander. We’re alive and that’s the way we’re going to stay, sword or no sword, and I’ll not allow you to continue acting like some half-dead puppy . . .”
Morgan came to his feet with a bound. “Enough, Padishar! I don’t need you worrying about me!” His voice sounded harsher than he had meant it to, but he could not disguise the anger he was feeling. That anger quickly found a focus. “Why don’t you try worrying about the Valemen? Do you have any idea at all what’s happened to them? Why have we left them behind like this?”
“Ah.” The other spoke the word softly. “So that’s what’s really eating at you, is it? Well, Highlander, the Valemen are likely better off than we are. We were seen getting out of that Gatehouse, remember? The Federation isn’t so stupid that it will overlook the report of what happened and the fact that two so-called guards are somehow missing. They’ll have our description. If we hadn’t gotten out of the city right away, we likely wouldn’t have gotten out at all!”
He jabbed his finger at the Highlander. “Now the Valemen, on the other hand—no one saw them. No one will recognize their faces. Besides, Damson will have them in hand by now. She knows to bring them to the Jut. She’ll get them out of Tyrsis easily enough when she has the chance.”
Morgan shook his head stubbornly. “Maybe. Maybe not. You were confidant as well about our chances of retrieving the Sword of Shannara and look what happened.”
Padishar flushed angrily. “The risks involved in that were hardly a secret to any of us!”
“Tell that to Stasas and Drutt and Ciba Blue!”
The big man snatched hold of Morgan’s tunic and yanked him forward violently. His eyes were hard with anger. “Those were my friends that died back there, Highlander—not yours. Don’t be throwing it up in my face! What I did, I did for all of us. We need the Sword of Shannara! Sooner or later we’re going to have to go back for it—Shadowen or not! You know that as well as I! As for the Valemen, I don’t like leaving them any better than you do! But we had precious little choice in the matter!”
Morgan tried unsuccessfully to jerk free. “You might have gone looking for them, at least!”
“Where? Where would I look? Do you think they would be hidden in any place we could find? Damson’s no fool! She has them tucked away in the deepest hole in Tyrsis! Shades, Highlander! Don’t you realize what’s happening back there? We uncovered a secret last night that the Federation has gone to great pains to conceal! I’m not sure either of us understands what it all means yet, but it’s enough that the Federation thinks we might! They’ll want us dead for that!”
His voice was a snarl. “I caught a glimpse of what’s to come when I passed you through the gates. The Federation authorities no longer concern themselves merely with doubling guards and increasing watch patrols. They have mobilized the entire garrison! Unless I am badly mistaken, young Morgan Leah, they have decided to eliminate us once and for all—you and me and any other members of the Movement they can run to earth. We are a real threat to them now, because, for the first time, we begin to understand what they are about—and that’s something they will not abide!”
His grip tightened, fingers of stone. “They’ll come hunting us, and we had best not be anywhere we can be found!”
He released the Highlander with a shove. He took a deep breath and straightened. “In any case, I don’t choose to argue the matter with you. I am leader here. You fought well back there in the Pit, and perhaps it cost you something. But that doesn’t give you the right to question my orders. I understand the business of staying alive better than you, and you had best remember it.”
Morgan was white with rage, but he kept himself in check. He k
new there was nothing to be gained by arguing the matter further; the big man was not about to change his mind. He knew as well, deep down inside where he could admit it to himself, that what Padishar was saying about staying around in an effort to find Par and Coll was the truth.
He stepped away from Padishar and smoothed his rumpled clothing carefully. “I just want to be certain that we are agreed that the Valemen will not be forgotten.”
Padishar Creel’s smile was quick and hard. “Not for a moment. Not by me, at least. You are free to do as you choose in the matter.”
He wheeled away, moving off into the trees. After a moment’s hesitation, Morgan swallowed his anger and pride and followed.
Par came awake for the second time that day toward midafternoon. Coll was shaking him and the smell of hot soup filled the close confines of their shelter. He blinked and sat up slowly. Damson stood at a pruning bench, spooning broth into bowls, the steam rising thickly as she worked. She glanced over at the Valeman and smiled. Her flaming hair shimmered brightly in the shards of sunlight that filtered through the cracks in the shuttered windows, and Par experienced an almost irresistible need to reach out and stroke it.
Damson served the Valemen the soup together with fresh fruit, bread, and milk, and Par thought it was the most wonderful meal he had ever tasted. He ate everything he was given, Coll with him, both ravenous beyond what they would have thought possible. Par was surprised that he had been able to go back to sleep, but he was unquestionably the better for it, his body rested now and shed of most of its aches and pains. There was little talk during the meal, and that left him free to think. His mind had begun working almost immediately on waking, skipping quickly from the memory of last night’s horrors to the prospect of what lay ahead—to sift through the information he had gathered, to consider carefully what he suspected, to make plans for what he now believed must be.
The process made him shudder inwardly with excitement and foreboding. Already, he discovered, he was beginning to relish the prospect of attempting the unthinkable.
When the Valemen had finished eating, they washed in a basin of fresh water. Then Damson sat them down again and told them what had become of Padishar and Morgan.
“They escaped,” she began without preamble. Her green eyes reflected amusement and awe. “I don’t know how they managed it, but they did. It took me awhile to verify that they had indeed gotten free, but I wanted to make certain of what I was being told.”
Par grinned at his brother in relief. Coll stifled his own grin and instead simply shrugged. “Knowing those two, they probably talked their way out,” he responded gruffly.
“Where are they now?” Par asked. He felt as if years had been added back onto his life. Padishar and Morgan had escaped—it was the best news he could have been given.
“That I don’t know,” Damson replied. “They seem to have disappeared. Either they have gone to ground in the city or—more likely—they have left it altogether and are on their way back to the Jut. The latter seems the better guess because the entire Federation garrison is mobilizing and there’s only one reason they would do that. They mean to go after Padishar and his men in the Parma Key. Apparently, whatever he—and you—did last night made them very angry. There are all sorts of rumors afloat. Some say dozens of Federation soldiers were killed at the Gatehouse by monsters. Some say the monsters are loose in the city. Whatever the case, Padishar will have read the signs as easily as I. He’ll have slipped out by now and gone north.”
“You’re certain the Federation hasn’t found him instead?” Par was still anxious.
Damson shook her head. “I would have heard.” She was propped against the leg of the pruning bench as they sat on the pallets that had served as their beds the night before. She let her head tilt back against the roughened wood so that the soft curve of her face caught the light. “It is your turn now. Tell me what happened, Par. What did you find in the Pit?”
With help from Coll, Par related what had befallen them, deciding as he did that he would do as Padishar had urged, that he would trust Damson in the same way that he had trusted the outlaw chief. Thus he told her not only of their encounter with the Shadowen, but of the strange behavior of the wishsong, of the unexpected way its magic had performed, even of his suspicions of the influence of the Elfstones.
When he had finished, the three of them sat staring wordlessly at one another for a moment, of different minds as they reflected on what the foray into the Pit had uncovered and what it all meant.
Coll spoke first. “It seems to me that we have more questions to answer now than we did when we went in.”
“But we know some things, too, Coll,” Par argued. He bent forward, eager to speak. “We know that there is some sort of connection between the Federation and the Shadowen. The Federation has to know what it has down there; it can’t be ignorant of the truth. Maybe it even helped create those monsters. For all we know they might be Federation prisoners thrown into the Pit like Ciba Blue and changed into what we found. And why are they still down there if the Federation isn’t keeping them so? Wouldn’t they have escaped long ago if they could?”
“As I said, there are more questions than answers,” Coll declared. He shifted his heavy frame to a more comfortable position.
Damson shook her head. “Something seems wrong here. Why would the Federation have any dealings with the Shadowen? The Shadowen represent everything the Federation is against—magic, the old ways, the subversion of the Southland and its people. How would the Federation even go about making such an arrangement? It has no defense against the Shadowen magic. How would it protect itself?”
“Maybe it doesn’t have to,” Coll said suddenly. They looked at him. “Maybe the Federation has given the Shadowen someone else to feed on besides itself, someone the Federation has no use for in any case. Perhaps that’s what became of the Elves.” He paused. “Perhaps that’s what’s happening now to the Dwarves.”
They were silent as they considered the possibility. Par hadn’t thought about the Dwarves for a time, the horrors of Culhaven and its people shoved to the back of his mind these past few weeks. He remembered what he had seen there—the poverty, the misery, the oppression. The Dwarves were being exterminated for reasons that had never been clear. Could Coll be right? Could the Federation be feeding the Dwarves to the Shadowen as a part of some unspeakable bargain between them?
His face tightened in dismay. “But what would the Federation get in return?”
“Power,” Damson Rhee said immediately. Her face was still and white.
“Power over the Races, over the Four Lands,” Coll agreed, nodding. “It makes sense, Par.”
Par shook his head slowly. “But what happens when there is no one left but the Federation? Surely someone must have thought of that. What keeps the Shadowen from feeding on them as well?”
No one answered. “We’re still missing something,” Par said softly. “Something important.”
He rose, walked to the other side of the room, stood looking into space for a long moment, shook his head finally, turned, and came back. His lean face was stubborn with determination as he reseated himself.
“Let’s get back to the matter of the Shadowen in the Pit,” he declared quietly, “since that, at least, is a mystery that we might be able to solve.” He folded his legs in front of him and eased forward. He looked at each of them in turn, then said, “I think that the reason they are down there is to keep anyone from getting to the Sword of Shannara.”
“Par!” Coll tried to object, but his brother cut him off with a quick shake of his head.
“Think about it a moment, Coll. Padishar was right. Why would the Federation go to all the trouble of remaking the People’s Park and the Bridge of Sendic? Why would they hide what remains of the old park and bridge in that ravine? Why, if not to conceal the Sword? And we’ve seen the vault, Coll! We’ve seen it!”
“The vault, yes—but not the Sword,” Damson pointed out quietly, her green
eyes intense as they met those of the Valemen.
“But if the Sword isn’t down in the Pit as well, why are the Shadowen there?” Par asked at once. “Surely not to protect an empty vault! No, the Sword is still there, just as it has been for three hundred years. That’s why Allanon sent me after it—he knew it was there, waiting to be found.”
“He could have saved us a lot of time and trouble by telling us as much,” said Coll pointedly.
Par shook his head. “No, Coll. That isn’t the way he would do it. Think about the history of the Sword. Bremen gave it to Jerle Shannara some thousand years ago to destroy the Warlock Lord and the Elf King couldn’t master it because he wasn’t prepared to accept what it demanded of him. When Allanon chose Shea Ohmsford to finish the job five hundred years later, he decided that the Valeman must first prove himself. If he was not strong enough to wield it, if he did not want it badly enough, if he were not willing to give enough of himself to the task that finding it entailed, then the power of the Sword would prove too much for him as well. And he knew if that happened, the Warlock Lord would escape again.”
“And he believes it will be the same now with you,” Damson finished. She was looking at Par as if she were seeing him for the first time. “If you are not strong enough, if you are not willing to give enough, the Sword of Shannara will be useless to you. The Shadowen will prevail.”
Par’s answering nod was barely discernible.
“But why would the Shadowen—or the Federation, for that matter—leave the Sword in the Pit all these years?” Coll demanded, irritated that they were even talking about the matter after what had happened to them last night. “Why not simply remove it—or better yet, why not destroy it?”