Ilse Witch (48 page)

He shifted away from the railing and faced the boy anew. “I’m related to you, as well, though I wouldn’t care to try to trace the lineage. We are both scions of Brin Ohmsford. But whereas you inherited her use of the wishsong, I inherited the blood trust bestowed on her by Allanon as he lay dying, the trust that foretold that one of her descendants would be the first of the new Druids. I was that descendant, though I didn’t want to believe it when it was revealed to me, didn’t want to accept it afterwards for a long time. I came to the Druid order reluctantly and served with constant misgiving.”

His sigh was soft and wistful. “There. It’s said. We are family, Bek, you and I—joined by blood as well as by magic’s use.” His smile was bitter. “The combination allowed me to summon you on Shatterstone when we were under attack, to connect with you through your thoughts when I could not do so with the others. It wasn’t a coincidence that I called to you.”

“I don’t get it,” Bek blurted out in confusion. “Why didn’t you tell me this before? Why did you keep it a secret? It doesn’t seem so bad. I’m not afraid of my magic. I can learn to use it. It can help us, can’t it? Isn’t that why I was asked to come? Because I have the magic? Because I’m an Ohmsford?”

The Druid shook his head. “It isn’t so simple. In the first place, use of the magic carries a terrible responsibility and a very real threat to the bearer. The magic is powerful and sometimes unpredictable. Using it can be tricky. It can even be harmful, not just to others but to you, as well. Magic often reacts as it chooses and not as you intend; your attempts to control it can fail. It isn’t necessarily good that you know you have it and can call it forth. Once you have unearthed its existence, it becomes a burden you cannot put down. Ever.”

“But it’s there nevertheless,” Bek pointed out. “It isn’t as if I had a choice about adopting it. Besides, you brought me on this journey to use my magic, didn’t you?”

The Druid nodded. “Yes, Bek. But there is more to it than that. I brought you for the use of your magic, but I brought you for another reason, as well—a more compelling one. Your parents and your sister were the last of the Ohmsfords. There were others, distant cousins and so forth, but your father was the last direct descendant of Par Ohmsford. He married your mother and they lived in the hamlet of Jentsen Close not far from the northeast edge of the Rainbow Lake, in a part of the farming community off the Rabb Plains. They had two children, your sister and you. Your sister’s name was Grianne. She was three years older than you, and signs of the
wishsong’s magic appeared in her very early. Your father recognized those signs and sent for me. He knew of the connection between us. I visited you when you were still a baby and your sister only four years of age. Because of my Druid experience, I was able to recognize the magic not only in your sister, but in you as well.”

He paused. “Unfortunately, the Morgawr discovered the existence of this magic as well. The Morgawr has lived for a very long time, hidden away in the Wilderun. He may have been an ally of the Shadowen, but he was not one of them and was not destroyed as they were. He surfaced about fifty years ago and began to expand his influence to the Federation. He is a powerful warlock, with ties to the Eastland Mwellrets and shape-shifters. It was because of these ties that I learned about his interest in your family. I was friends with Truls Rohk by then, and several times he followed shape-shifters that had gone to your home. They didn’t do anything but observe, but it was a clear warning that something wasn’t right.”

He stopped talking as a clutch of Rovers came down off the aft decking and moved to the forward stairway. Their work for the night was finished, and they were eager for sleep. One or two glanced over, then looked quickly away. In seconds, the Druid and the boy were alone again.

“I should have realized what was happening, but I was preoccupied with trying to form a Druid Council at Paranor.” Walker shook his head. “I didn’t act quickly enough. A band of Mwellrets dressed in black cloaks and led by the Morgawr killed your parents and burned your house to the ground. They made it look like an attack by Gnome raiders. Your sister hid you in a cold room off the cellar and told them you were dead when they took her. It was Grianne they wanted all along, for her magic, for the power of the wishsong. The Morgawr coveted her. His intent was to subvert her, to make her his disciple, his student in the use of her magic. He tricked her into believing that the black-cloaked Mwellrets were Druid led and influenced. I became the enemy she grew up
hating. All of my efforts to change that, to rescue her, to gain her trust so that she might discover the truth, have failed.”

He gestured toward the enfolding wall of mist. “Now she hunts me, Bek, somewhere out there on that other airship.” He looked at the boy. “Your sister is the Ilse Witch.”

They stood for a while without speaking, looking off into the void where the woman who had once been Grianne Ohmsford tracked them. The enormity of Walker’s revelation settled over Bek. Was it the truth or was the Druid playing games with him here, as well? He had so many questions, but they all jumbled together and screamed at him at once. He did not know what he was supposed to do with what he had been told. He could see the possibilities, but he could not make himself consider them yet. He found himself remembering the nighttime visit of the King of the Silver River, all those months ago, and of the forms the spirit creature had taken—the girl, who was the past, and the monster, who was the present. That girl, he now understood, was his sister. That was why she had seemed so familiar to him—he still retained a memory of her child’s face. The monster was what she had become, the Ilse Witch. But the future remained to be determined—by Bek, who must not shy from his search, his need to know, or what his heart compelled him to do.

The jumble of questions gave way to just one. Was it within his power to change his sister back?

“There is one last thing, Bek,” Walker said suddenly. “Come with me.”

He moved away from the railing toward the center of the airship, and the boy followed. Within the pilot box, black-bearded Spanner Frew faced ahead into the gloom, paying them no attention, his eyes sweeping the mist and the dark.

“Does she know I’m alive?” Bek asked quietly.

The Druid shook his head. “She believes you dead. She has no reason to believe otherwise. Truls Rohk found you in the ruins of your home three days after your sister was
stolen. He was keeping watch on his own and had seen the Mwellrets returning through the Wolfsktaag. He was able to find the hiding place that they had missed. You were almost dead by then. He brought you to me, and when you were strong enough, I took you to Coran Leah.”

“Yet my sister blames you for what happened.”

“She is deceived by her own bitterness and the Morgawr’s guile. His story of what happened is quite different from the truth, but it is a story she has come to believe. Now she cloaks herself in her magic’s power and shuts out the world. She seeks to be a fortress that no one can breach.”

“Except perhaps for me? Is that why I’m here? Is that what the King of the Silver River was showing me?”

The Druid said nothing.

They stopped before the mysterious object he had brought aboard in secret and wrapped in chains of magic. It sat solitary and impenetrable against the foremast, a rectangular box set on end, standing perhaps seven feet in height and three feet across and deep. The canvas concealed all trace of what lay beneath, revealing only size and shape. The chains glistened with the mist’s damp and on closer inspection seemed to have no beginning and no end.

Bek glanced around. The decks of the airship were deserted this night save for the helmsman and a pair of Elven Hunters of the watch, who were clustered about the aft railing. None of these would venture forward to take up his position while the Druid stood talking with the boy. In the wake of the airship’s silent passing, the only movement came from the shadows in the mist.

“No one will see what I show you now but you and me,” the Druid said softly.

He passed his hand before the casing, and it was as if the side they were facing melted away. Within the blackness revealed, suspended blade downward, was a sword. The sword was slender and its metal shone a deep-bluish silver against the surrounding dark. The handle was old and worn, but
finely wrought. Carved into its polished wooden grip was a fist that clenched and thrust aloft a burning torch.

“This is the Sword of Shannara, Bek,” the Druid whispered, bending close so that his words would carry no farther than the boy’s ears. “This, too, is your legacy. It is the birthright of the descendants of the Elven King Jerle Shannara, for whom this vessel is named. Only a member of the Shannara bloodline can wield this blade. Ohmsfords, who were the last of the Shannara, have carried this sword into battle against the Warlock Lord and the Shadowen. They have used it to champion the freedom of the races for more than a thousand years.”

He touched Bek’s shoulder lightly. “Now it is your turn.”

Bek knew the stories. He knew them all, just as he knew the history of the Druids and the Wars of the Races and all the rest. No one had seen this talisman in over five hundred years, when Shea Ohmsford stood against the Warlock Lord and destroyed him—though there were rumors it had resurfaced in the battle with the Shadowen. Rumors, the Druid’s words would suggest, that were true.

“The sword is a talisman for truth, Bek. It was forged to defend against lies that enslave and conceal. It is a powerful talisman, and it requires strength of will and heart to wield. It needs a bearer who will not shrink from the pain and doubt and fear that embracing the truth sometimes engenders. You are a worthy successor to those others of your family who have been called to the sword’s service. You are strong and determined. Much of what I exposed you to on this voyage was meant to measure that. I will be frank with you. Without your help, without the Sword’s power to aid us, we are probably lost.”

He turned back to the casing and passed his hand in front of it once more. The Sword of Shannara disappeared, and the wrappings of canvas and chains were restored.

Bek continued staring at them, as if still seeing the talisman they concealed. “You’re giving the Sword of Shannara to me?”

The Druid nodded.

The boy’s voice was shaking as he spoke. “Walker, I don’t know if I can—”

“No, Bek,” the Druid interrupted him quickly, gently. “Say nothing tonight. Tomorrow is soon enough. There is much to discuss, and we will do so then. You’ll have questions, and I will do my best to answer them. We will work together to prepare for what will happen when it is necessary for you to summon the sword’s magic.”

Bek’s eyes shifted anxiously, and the Druid met the question mirrored there with a reassuring smile. “Not against your sister, though one day you might have to use it in that way. No, this first time the magic will serve another purpose. If I have read the map correctly, Bek, the Sword of Shannara is the key to our gaining entry into Ice Henge.”

C
ome daybreak, Bek rose and went about his morning duties as cabin boy in something of a daze, still struggling with the previous night’s revelations, when the Druid intercepted him coming out of Rue Meridian’s cabin and told him to follow. It was an hour after sunrise, and Bek had dressed and eaten breakfast. He still had tasks to perform, but Walker’s summons didn’t leave room for discussion on the matter.

They climbed topside and walked forward to the bow railing, very close to where they had stood the night before. The sky around them was unchanged, gray and misted and impenetrable. Everywhere Bek looked, right or left, up or down, the color and light were the same. Visibility was still limited to thirty feet or so. Those of the ship’s company already on deck had the look of ghosts, ethereal and not quite fully formed. Redden Alt Mer stood in the pilot box with Furl Hawken, two Rovers were at work aft, braiding new ends on the portside radian draws, and Quentin sparred with the Elven Hunters on the foredeck under Ard Patrinell’s steady gaze. No one looked up as Bek passed or acted as if anything about the boy had changed, even though in his mind everything had.

“To begin with, you are still Bek Rowe,” Walker told him when they were seated together on a casing filled with light sheaths. “You are not to use the name Ohmsford. It is
too recognizable, and you don’t want to draw unneeded attention to yourself.”

Bek nodded. “All right.”

“Also, I don’t want you to tell anyone what you’ve told me or what you’ve learned from me about your magic, your history, or the Sword of Shannara. Not even Quentin. Not one word.”

He waited. Bek nodded once more.

“Finally, you are not to forget that you are here to serve as my eyes and ears, to listen and keep watch. That wasn’t an idle assignment, meant to give you something to do until it was time to tell you who you were. Your magic gives you powers of observation that are lacking in most. I still need you to use those talents. They are no less important now than they were before.”

“I can’t see that I’ve put them to much use so far,” Bek observed. “Nothing I’ve told you has been particularly useful.”

The Druid’s ironic smile flashed momentarily and was gone. “You don’t think so? Maybe you’re not paying close enough attention.”

“Does Ryer Ord Star see anything in her dreams that could help you? Is she keeping watch as well?”

“She does what she can. But your sight, Bek, though not a seer’s, is the more valuable.” He shifted so that he was leaning very close. “She dreams of outcomes before they happen, but you spy out causes while they’re still seeking to create an effect. That’s the difference in the magic you wield. Remember that.”

Bek had no idea what Walker was talking about, but decided to mull over it another time. He nodded.

Curtains of gray mist drifted past, and the sounds of sword-play and of metal tools in use echoed eerily in the enshrouding haze. It was as if each group of men formed a separate island, and only the sounds they made connected them in any real way.