Morgawr (32 page)

“We have to decide what we're going to do if he comes into the ruins and finds us,” Bek said quietly.

“He is only one man,” Rue said. “None of the others have his magic to protect them. The rets can be killed. I've killed them myself.”

She sounded so fierce when she said it that Bek turned to look at her in spite of himself. But when he saw the look on her face he could not bring himself to say anything back.

Grianne had no such problem. “What you say is true, but the Morgawr is more powerful than any of you or even all of you put together. He is not a man; he is not even human. He is a creature who has kept himself alive a thousand years through use of dark magic. He knows a hundred ways to kill with barely a thought.”

“He taught you all of them, I expect,” Rue said without looking at her.

The words had no visible effect on Grianne, though Bek flinched. “What can we do to stop him?” he asked, looking to avoid the confrontation he could feel building.

“Nothing,” his sister answered. She turned now to face them both. “This isn't your fight. It never was. Rue was right in asking me what I intended to do about the Morgawr. He is my responsibility. I am the one who must face him.”

“You can't do that,” Bek said at once. “Not alone.”

“Alone is best. Distractions will only jeopardize my chances of defeating him. Anyone whom I care about is a distraction he will take advantage of. Alone, I can do what is necessary. The Morgawr is powerful, but I am his match. I always have been.”

Bek shook his head angrily. “Once, maybe. But you were the Ilse Witch then.”

“I am the Ilse Witch still, Bek.” She gave him a quick, sad smile. “You just don't see me that way.”

“She's right about this,” Rue interrupted before he could offer further argument. “She has magic honed on the warlock's grinding stone. She knows how to use it against him.”

“But I have the same magic!” Bek snapped, hissing in anger as he sought to keep his voice down. “What about Ahren Elessedil? He has the power of the Elfstones. Shouldn't we use our magics together? Wouldn't that be more effective than you facing the Morgawr alone? Why are you being so stubborn about this?”

“You are inexperienced at using the wishsong, Bek. Ahren is inexperienced at using the Elfstones. The Morgawr would kill you both before you could find a way to stop him.”

She walked over to stand beside Rue Meridian, a deliberate act he could not mistake, and turned back to face him. “Everything that has happened to me is the Morgawr's doing. Everything I lost, I lost because of him. Everything I became, I became because of him. Everything I did, I did because of him. I made the choices, but he dictated the circumstances under which those choices were made. I make no excuses for myself, but I am owed something for what was done. No one can give that back to me. I have to take it back. I have to reclaim it. I can only do that by facing him.”

Bek was incensed. “You don't have to prove anything!”

“Don't I, Bek?”

He was silent, aware of how untenable his argument was and how implacable his sister's thinking. She might not have anything to prove to him, but she did to a lot of others. Most important of all, she had something to prove to herself.

“I won't be whole again until I settle this,” she said. “It won't stop if we escape. I know the Morgawr. He will keep coming until he finds a way to destroy me. If I want this matter ended, I have to end it here.”

Bek shook his head in disgust. “What are we supposed to do while you go out there and sacrifice yourself? Hope for the best?”

“Take advantage of the confusion. Even if I am killed, the Morgawr will not emerge unscathed. He will be weakened and his followers will be in disarray. You can choose to face them or escape while they lick their wounds. Either is fine. Talk about it with the others and decide among you.”

She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “You have done everything you could for me, Bek. You have no reason to feel regret. I am doing this because I must.”

She turned to Rue Meridian. “I like it that you are not afraid of anyone, even me. I like it that you love my brother so much.”

“Don't do this,” Bek pleaded.

“Take care of him,” his sister said to Rue, and without another word or even a single glance back she walked away.

Ordering the rest of the fleet to remain anchored offshore, safely away from any attempts at sabotage, the Morgawr flew
Black Moclips
over the silver-tipped surface of the Blue Divide to the grassy flats of Mephitic. He landed his vessel and tied her off, leaving Aden Kett and his walking dead on board with a handful of guards to watch over them. Then, tossing a rope ladder over the railing of the starboard pontoon, he took Cree Bega and a dozen of his Mwellrets down off the ship and toward the castle.

They crossed the grasslands openly and deliberately, making no effort to hide their approach. If the survivors of the
Jerle Shannara
were hiding within the walls of the ruins, the Morgawr wanted them to see him coming. He wanted them to have time to think about it before he reached them, to let their anticipation build, and with it their fear. The Ilse Witch might not be frightened, but her companions would be. They would know by now how he feasted on the souls of the living. They would know how the Federation crew he had captured aboard
Black Moclips
had reacted while it was happening and what they looked like afterwards. At least one of them was likely to break down and reveal the presence of the others. That would save him time and effort. It would allow him to conserve his energy for dealing with the witch.

He told Cree Bega what he wanted. The Mwellrets were to follow his lead. They were not to talk. When they found their quarry, they were to leave the Ilse Witch to him. The others were theirs to do with as they wished. It would be best if they could kill them swiftly or render them unconscious so that they could be carried outside and disposed of.

Above all, they were to remember that there was something else living in the ruins, a spirit creature possessed of magic and capable of generating tremendous power. If it was aroused or attacked, it could prove extremely dangerous. Nothing was to be tampered with once they were inside, because the creature considered the castle its own and would fight to protect it. It cared nothing for the
Jerle Shannara
and her crew, however. They were not a part of its realm, and it would not protect them.

He said all this without being entirely sure it was true. It was possible that he was wrong and that the castle's inhabitant would attack for reasons the Morgawr could not even guess at. But no good purpose was served in telling that to the Mwellrets. All of them were expendable, even Cree Bega. What mattered was that he himself survive, and he had no reason to think that he wouldn't. His magic could protect him from anything. It always had.

His plan, then, was simple. He would find the witch and kill her, retrieve the books of magic from the airship, and escape. If he could achieve the former and not the latter, it would be enough. With the Druid dead, his little witch was the only one left who might cause him problems later. The books of magic were important, but he could give them up if he had to.

He began thinking about what it meant to have the last of the Druids gone. Paranor would lie uninhabited and vulnerable—protected by magic, yes, but accessible nevertheless to someone like himself who knew how to counteract that magic. It was Walker who had kept him at bay all these years. Now, perhaps, what had belonged to the Druids could be his.

The Morgawr permitted himself a smile. The wheel had come full circle on the Druids. Their time was over. His time was not. He need only dispose of one small girl. Ilse Witch or not, she was still only that.

Ahead, the broken-down walls and parapets of the ancient castle reared against the sunrise, stark and bare. His anticipation of what was waiting within compelled him to walk more swiftly to reach them.

Thirty

Grianne Ohmsford walked through the empty corridors and courtyards of the old castle with slow, deliberate steps, giving herself a chance to gather her wits. In spite of what she had allowed Bek and Rue Meridian to believe, her decision to face the Morgawr alone was impulsive and not particularly well thought out. But it was necessary for all the reasons she had given them. She was the one he was looking for, and therefore the one who must confront him. She was the only one who stood a chance against his magic. She had done a lot of harm in her life as the Ilse Witch, and any redemption for her wrongs began with an accounting from the warlock.

She was still weak from her long sleep, but fueled by anger and determination. The truths about her life hovered right in front of her eyes, images made bright and clear by the magic of the Sword of Shannara, and she could not forget them. They defined her, and knowing what she had been was what made it possible for her to see what she must now become. To complete that journey, she must put an end to the Morgawr.

Silence cloaked her like a shroud, and the ruins bore the aura of a tomb. She smiled at the feeling, so familiar and still welcome, her world as she had known it for so many years. Shadows cast by walls and towers where sunlight could not penetrate spilled across the broken stone and cracked mortar like ink. She walked through those shadows in comfort, the darkness her friend, the legacy of her life. It would never change, she realized suddenly. She would always favor those things that had made her feel safe. She had found a home under conditions that would have destroyed others, had done so when everything she cared for had been taken away and all that was left was her rage, and she knew she would not be able to step away from that past easily.

That would not change, should she survive this day. Bek envisioned a returning home, a coming together of their new family, a settling into a quiet life. But his vision held no appeal for her and was rooted in dreams that belonged to someone else. Her life would take a different path from his; she knew that much already. Hers would never be what he hoped it might, because the reason for her recovery lay not so much with him—though he had brought her awake when no one else could—but with the Dark Uncle, the keeper of secrets and the bestower of trusts. With Walker Boh.

Dead now, but with her always.

She began to hum, wrapping herself in the feel of the ruins and the thing that lived within them. It was dormant at present, but as pervasive in its domain as Antrax had been in its. It was everywhere at once, its presence infused in the hard stone and the dead air. She knew from Bek that the way to deceive it was to make it feel as if you belonged. She would begin her efforts to achieve that now. Once she had thoroughly integrated herself, once she was accepted as just another piece of rubble, she would be ready to deal with her enemy.

It took only a little time and effort to create the skin she needed, the mask she required. She eased herself along the corridors, listening now for the sounds of the Morgawr and his rets. They would have reached the walls and begun looking for a way inside. Her plan for him was simple. She would try to separate him from his followers, to isolate him from their help. If she was to have a chance against him, she must get him alone and keep him that way. Cree Bega and his Mwellrets were no threat to her, but they could become the sort of distraction she had worried Bek and Rue Meridian might become. To win her struggle with the Morgawr, that must not be allowed to happen.

Already, she was beginning to feel a part of her surroundings, a thing of stone and mortar, of ancient time and dust.

She shed that part of her that was Grianne Ohmsford and reverted very deliberately to being the Ilse Witch. She became the creature she must to survive, armoring herself against what waited and concealing what was vulnerable. It demanded a shift in thinking, a closing off of feelings and a shutting away of doubt. It required a girding of self for battle. Such prosaic descriptions made her smile, for the truth was much darker and meaner. She was taking a different path from the one she had followed when her purpose in life was to see Walker destroyed, but this path was just as bleak. Killing the Morgawr was killing still. It would not enhance her self-respect. It would not change the past. At best, it would give a handful of those she had wronged a chance at life. That would have to be enough.

She was glad Bek was not here to see the change happen, for she believed it was reflected in her eyes and voice. It could be contained, but not hidden. Maybe this was how she must always be, split between two selves, required by events and circumstances to be duplicitous and cunning. She could see it happening that way, but there was nothing she could do about it.

There were sounds ahead now, the echoes of small scrapings and slidings, of heavy boots passing over stone and earth. They were still a long way off, but getting closer. The Morgawr was trying to penetrate the maze. As yet, he had not detected her presence, but it would not take him long. It would be best if she attacked him before he did, while he still thought himself safe. She could wait and see if the magic of the thing in the ruins might confuse the warlock, but it would probably be wasted effort. The Morgawr was too clever to be fooled for long and too persistent to be turned away for good. Redden Alt Mer's plan had been a reasonable one, but not for someone so dangerous.

She continued to hum softly, the magic concealing her not only from the dweller in the ruins but from those who hunted her, as well. She made her way toward them, sliding through the shadows, watching the open spaces ahead for signs of movement. It would not be long until she encountered them. She breathed slowly and deeply to steady herself. She must be cautious. She must be as silent as the air through which she passed. She must be no more in evidence than would a shade come from the dead.

Most of all, she must be swift.

Redden Alt Mer seemed almost resigned to the inevitability of it when he heard what Grianne Ohmsford had done. Standing on the aft deck of the
Jerle Shannara
with Bek and Rue, he made no response, but instead stared off into the distance, lost in thought. Finally, he told them to go back on watch and let him know if they saw anything. He did not look ready to summon any of the Rover crew to prepare for an escape should Grianne fail. He did not appear interested in doing anything. He heard them out and then walked away.

His sister exchanged a quick glance with Bek and shrugged. “Wait here,” she said.

She disappeared below, leaving Bek to contemplate what lay ahead. He stood at the railing of the airship and looked up at the clear blue sky. Britt Rill and Kelson Riat stood together in the bow, talking in low voices. Spanner Frew was fussing with something in the pilot box, working through the heavy boughs they had laid down to hide it from the air. Alt Mer and the others were nowhere to be seen. Everything seemed strangely peaceful. For the moment, it was, Bek thought. No one would come for them right away. Not until the Morgawr had settled things with Grianne.

He thought about looking in on Quentin, but couldn't bring himself to do so. He didn't want to see his cousin while he was feeling like this. Quentin was smart enough to read his face, and he didn't think that would be such a good thing this morning. If Quentin knew what was happening, he would want to get out of bed and stand with them. He wasn't strong enough for that, and there would be time enough for the Highlander to engage in futile heroics if everything else failed. Best just to let him sleep for now.

Rue Meridian reappeared through the hatchway, buckling on her weapons belt with its brace of throwing knives, tucking a third into her boot as she came up to him. “Ready to go?” she asked.

He stared at her. “Ready to go where?”

“After your sister,” she said. “You don't think we're going to stand around here doing nothing, do you?”

Not when she put it that way, he didn't. Without another word, they slipped over the side of the airship and disappeared into the ruins after Grianne.

Redden Alt Mer had been thinking about the company's situation all night. Unable to sleep, he had been reduced to pacing the decks to calm himself. He hated being grounded, all the more so for knowing that he couldn't get airborne again easily and was, essentially, trapped. He was infuriated by his sense of helplessness, a condition with which he was not familiar. Even though it had been his plan to hide in the ruins and hope the Morgawr didn't find them, he found it incomprehensible that he would actually sit there and do nothing while waiting to see if it worked.

When Bek's sister awoke, brought out of her catatonia after all these weeks, he knew at once that everything was about to change. It wasn't a change he could put a name to, but one he could definitely feel. The Ilse Witch awake, whether friend or enemy or something else altogether, was a presence that would shift the balance of things in some measurable way. To Alt Mer, that she had chosen to go after the Morgawr rather than to wait for the warlock to come to her seemed completely in character. It was what he would have done if he hadn't locked himself in the untenable position of hiding and waiting. The longer he stayed grounded, the more convinced he became that he was making a mistake. This wasn't the way to save either his airship or her passengers. It wasn't the way to stay alive. The Morgawr was too smart to be fooled. Alt Mer would have been better off staying aloft and fighting it out in the air.

Not that he would have stood a chance with that approach either, he conceded glumly. Best to keep things in perspective while castigating oneself for perceived failures.

He left the airship and climbed the tower into which he had sent Little Red and Bek to keep watch, but they weren't there. Confused by their absence, he looked down into the courtyard where the
Jerle Shannara
sat concealed, thinking he might spy them. Nothing. He looked off toward the surrounding courtyards and passageways, peering through breaks in the crumbling castle walls.

He found them then, several hundred yards away, sliding through the shadows, heading toward the front of the keep and the Morgawr.

For a second, he was stunned by what he was seeing, realizing that not only had his sister disobeyed him, but she was risking her life for the witch. Or for Bek, but it amounted to the same thing. He wanted to shout to them to get back to the ship, to do what they had been told, but he knew it was a waste of time. Rue had been doing as she pleased for as long as he could remember, and trying to make her do otherwise was a complete waste of time. Besides, she was only doing what he had been thinking he should do just moments earlier.

He walked to the outer wall of the tower and looked out across the grasslands. The Morgawr and his rets were already inside the castle, and the plains were empty save for
Black Moclips
, which sat anchored inland perhaps a quarter of a mile away. Beyond, clearly visible against the deep blue of the morning sky, the Morgawr's fleet hovered at anchor offshore.

He stared at the airships for a moment, at the way they were clustered to protect against a surprise attack, and an idea came to him. It was so wild, so implausible, that he almost dismissed it out of hand. But he couldn't quite let it go, and the longer he held on, the more attractive it seemed. Like a brightly colored snake that would turn on you once it had you hypnotized. Like fire, waiting to burn you to ash if you reached out to touch it.

Shades, he thought, he was going to do it.

He was aghast, but excited, as well, his blood pumping through him in a hot flush as he raced down the tower stairs for the airship. He would have to be quick to make a difference, and even that might not be enough. What he was thinking was insane. But there was all sorts of madness in the world, and at least this one involved something more than just standing around.

He burst out of the tower, leapt aboard the
Jerle Shannara
, and headed directly for Spanner Frew. The shipwright looked up from his work, doubt clouding his dark features as he saw the look on the other's face. “What is it?” he asked.

“You're not doing anything important, are you?” Alt Mer replied, reaching for his sword and buckling it on.

Spanner Frew stared at him. “Everything I do is important. What do you want?”

“I want you to go with me to steal back
Black Moclips
.”

The shipwright grunted in disgust. “That didn't work so well for Little Red, as I recall.”

“Little Red didn't have a good plan. I do. Come along and find out. We'll take Britt and Kelson for company. It should be fun, Black Beard.”

Spanner Frew folded his burly arms across his chest. “It sounds dangerous to me.”

Alt Mer grinned. “You didn't think you were going to live forever, did you?” he asked.

Then, seeing the other man's dark brow furrow in response, he laughed.

He left Ahren Elessedil and Kian to keep watch over the
Jerle Shannara
and set out with Spanner Frew, Kelson Riat, and Britt Rill for the outside wall of the castle. It didn't occur to him until he was well away from the airship that he might have trouble finding his way back. Not only were the ruins a confusing maze to begin with, but the spirit creature's magic was designed to keep intruders from penetrating beyond the perimeter. But there was no help for it now, and besides, he didn't think he would be coming back anyway.

He told his companions what he thought they needed to know and no more. He told them that they were going to skirt the ruins to their most inland point, well away from the view of those aboard
Black Moclips
, then sneak around to the far side of the airship, get aboard, and steal her away. If they could manage it, they would have a fully operational airship in which to make their escape. With luck, the Morgawr would not be able to give chase, and without him, the rest of the fleet would lack the necessary leadership to act.