The Wishsong of Shannara (29 page)

She caught herself sharply, strangely ashamed that she had allowed herself to even think the word. But Allanon had died, passing from the world of mortal men as all must, going from the Four Lands in the arms of his father—perhaps to where Bremen kept watch. She thought about that possibility for a moment. Could it be that he had indeed gone to be with his father? She remembered his words to her: “When your quest is done, Brin, you will find me here.” Did that mean that he, too, had locked himself into a limbo existence between the worlds of life and death?

There were tears in her eyes, and she wiped them hurriedly away. She could not permit herself tears. Allanon was gone, and she was alone.

Rone Leah stirred restlessly beneath the heavy blankets, his breathing harsh and uneven. She rose slowly and moved to where he lay. The lean, sunburned face was hot, dry, and drawn tight against the fever that ravaged his body. He shivered momentarily as she watched, as if suddenly chill, then went taut. Words whispered on his lips, their meaning lost.

What am I to do with him? the Valegirl asked herself helplessly. Would that I had my father’s skill. I have given him the tonic provided by the trader. I have wrapped him in blankets to keep him warm. But none of it seems to be helping. What else am I to do?

It was the Jachyra’s poison that was infecting him, she knew. Allanon had said that the poison attacked not just the body, but the spirit as well. It had killed the Druid—and while his wounds had been so much worse than Rone’s, still he was Allanon and much the stronger of the two. Even the lesser damage suffered by the highlander was proving to be more than his body could fight.

She sank down next to his bed, her hand closing gently about his. Her protector. She smiled sadly—who would now protect him?

Memories slipped like quicksilver through her mind, jumbled and confused. They had gone through so much to reach this lonely, desperate night, she and Rone Leah. And at what terrible cost. Paranor was gone. Allanon was dead. Even the Sword of Leah, the one real piece of magic they possessed between them, was gone. All that was left was the wishsong.

Yet Allanon had said the wishsong would be enough  . . .

Booted feet shuffled softly on the earthen floor of the stable without. Blessed with the Elven senses of her forefathers, she caught the noise where another might have missed it. Hurriedly, she dropped Rone’s hand and scrambled to her feet, her weariness forgotten.

Someone was out there—someone who didn’t want to be heard.

One hand crept guardedly to the haft of the long knife sheathed at her waist, then dropped away. She could not do that. She would not.

The latch on the door jiggled softly and caught.

“Who’s there?” she called out.

A low cursing sounded from just outside, and abruptly several heavy bodies slammed into the tack room door. Brin backed away, searching hurriedly for another way out. There was none. Again the bodies slammed into the door. The iron latch gave way with an audible snap and five dark forms came crashing into the room, the faint light of the oil lamp glinting dully off drawn knives. They gathered in a knot at the edge of the shadows, grunting and mumbling drunkenly as they faced the girl.

“Get out of here!” she snapped, anger and fear racing through her.

Laughter greeted her words, and the foremost of the intruders stepped forward into the light. She knew him at once. He was one of those from west of Spanning Ridge, one of those the trader Stebb had called thieves.

“Pretty girl,” he muttered, his words slurred. “Come on  . . . over here.”

The five crept forward, spreading out across the darkened room. She might have tried to break past them, but that would have meant leaving Rone and she had no intention of doing that. Again, her hand closed about the long knife.

“Now, don’t do that  . . .” the speaker whispered, edging closer. Suddenly he lunged, quicker than the girl would have thought after having drunk so much, and his hand fastened about her wrist, yanking it away from the weapon. Instantly the others closed in, hands grasping her clothing, pulling her to them, pulling her down. She fought back wildly, striking out at her attackers. But they were much stronger than she and they were hurting her.

Then something within her seemed to snap as surely as had the latch on the tack room door when broken. Her thoughts scattered, and everything she was disappeared in a flash of blinding anger. What happened next was all instinct, hard and quick. She sang, the wishsong a new and different sound than any that had gone before. It filled the shadowed room with a fury that whispered of death and mindless destruction. Her attackers staggered back from the Valegirl, eyes and mouths widening in shock and disbelief, and hands coming up to cover their ears. They doubled over in agony as the wishsong penetrated their senses and crushed in about their minds. Madness rang in its call, frenzy and hurt so bitter it could almost be seen.

The five from west of Spanning Ridge were smothered in the sound. They fell against one another as they groped for the door that had brought them in. From their open mouths, shrieks came back in answer to the Valegirl’s song. Still she did not stop. Her fury was so complete that reason could find no means to stem it. The wishsong rose, and the animals in the stable kicked and slammed wildly against their stalls, crying out their pain as the girl’s voice ripped at them.

Then the five at last found the open doorway and stumbled from the tack room in maddened desperation, curled over like broken things, shaking and whimpering. Blood ran from their mouths, from their ears, and from their noses. Hands covered their faces, the fingers knotted into claws.

Brin saw them anew in that instant as the blindness of her fury left her. She also saw the trader Stebb appear suddenly from the darkness as the intruders ran past, a look of horror in his face as he, too, stopped and backed away, hands held frantically before him. Reason returned in a rush of guilt, and the wishsong died into stillness.

“Oh, shades  . . .” she cried softly and collapsed in stricken disbelief.

Midnight came and went. The trader had left her alone again and gone back to the comfort and sanity of his own lodgings, his eyes frightened and haunted. In the darkness of the forest clearing that sheltered the Rooker Line Trading Center, all was still.

She sat curled close to the iron stove. Fresh wood burned in it, snapping and sparking in the silence. She sat with her legs drawn up against her chest, her arms wrapped about them like a child lost in thought.

But her thoughts were dark and filled with demons. Fragments of Allanon’s words lay scattered in those thoughts, whispering of what she had for so long refused to hear. The wishsong is power—power like nothing I have ever seen. It will protect you. It will see you safely through your quest. It will destroy the Ildatch.

Or destroy me, she answered back. Or destroy those about me. It can kill. It can make me kill.

She stirred finally, cramped and aching from the position she had held for so long, her dark eyes glistening with fear. She stared through the grated door of the iron stove, watching the red glare of the flames as they danced within. She might have killed those five men from west of Spanning Ridge, she thought despairingly. She would have killed them, perhaps, had they not found the door.

Her throat tightened. What was to prevent that from happening the next time she was forced to use the wishsong?

Behind her, Rone moaned softly, thrashing beneath the blankets that covered him. She turned slowly to find his face, bending close to stroke his forehead. His skin was deathly pale now, feverish, hot, and drawn. His breathing was worse as well, turned shallow and raspy, as if each breath were an effort that sapped him of his strength.

She knelt beside him, her head shaking. The tonic had not helped. He was growing weaker, and the poison was working deeper into his system, draining him of his life. If it were not stopped, he was going to die  . . .

Like Allanon.

“No!” she cried softly, urgently, and she gripped his hand in hers as if she might hold back the life that seeped away.

She knew in that instant what she must do. Savior and destroyer—that was what the shade of Bremen had named her. Very well. To those thieves from west of Spanning Ridge, she had been destroyer. Perhaps to Rone Leah she could be savior.

Still holding his hand with her own, she bent close to his ear and began to sing. Softly, gently the wishsong slipped from her lips, floating like invisible smoke through the air about them both. Carefully, she reached out to the sickened highlander, probing for the hurt he felt, searching out the source of the poison that was killing him.

I must try, she told herself as she sang. I must! By morning he will be gone, the poison spread all through him—poison that attacks the spirit as well as the body. Allanon had said it was so. Perhaps, then, the Elven magic can find a means to heal.

She sang, sweet and lingering tones that wrapped the highlander close about and brought him to her. Slowly, he began to cease his shivering and thrashing and to become still beneath the calming sound. He slipped down into the blankets, his breathing growing steadier and stronger.

The minutes slipped away with agonizing slowness as the Valegirl sang on and waited for the change she somehow sensed must come. When at last it did, it came so suddenly that she nearly lost control of what she was about. From the ravaged, wasted body of Rone Leah, the poison of the Jachyra lifted in a red mist—dissipating out of the unconscious highlander to float above him, swirling wickedly in the dim light of the oil lamp. Hissing, it hung above its victim for an instant as Brin interposed the magic of the wishsong between its touch and the body of Rone Leah. Then slowly it faded into nothingness and was gone.

On the bed beside her, sweat bathed the face of the Prince of Leah. The drawn and haggard look was gone, and the breathing was steady and even once more. Brin stared down at him through a veil of tears as the wishsong died into silence.

I have done it, she cried softly. I have used the magic for good. Savior this time—not destroyer.

Still kneeling beside him, she buried her face in the warmth of his body, her arms holding him close. In moments, she was asleep.

XXVIII

T
hey stayed on for two days at the Rooker Line Trading Center, waiting for Rone to regain strength enough to resume the journey east. The fever was gone by morning and the highlander was resting comfortably, but he was still entirely too weak to attempt to travel. So Brin asked permission of the trader Stebb to keep the use of the tack room for one day more, and the trader agreed. He provided them with food for their meals, rations of ale, medicines, and blankets, and he refused quickly all offers of payment. He was happy to be of help to them, he assured the Valegirl. But he was uneasy in her presence and he never quite managed to let his eyes meet hers. Brin understood well enough what was happening. The trader was a kind and decent man, but now he was frightened of her and of what she might do to him if he refused help. He would probably have helped her out of his basic generosity, but fear had added urgency to his impulse. He obviously felt that this was the quickest and most expedient way to get her out of his life.

She remained for the most part within the confines of the little tack room with Rone, seeing to his needs and talking with him of what had befallen them since the death of Allanon. Talking about it seemed to help; while both were still stunned by what had happened, the sharing of their feelings brought forth a common determination that they must go forward to complete the quest that the Druid had left to them. A new closeness developed between them, stronger and more certain in its purpose. With the death of Allanon, they now had only each other upon whom to rely and each felt new value in the other’s presence. Alone together in the solitude of their tiny room at the rear of the trader’s stables, they spoke in hushed tones of the choices that had been made to bring them to this point in their lives and of those that must yet be made. Slowly, surely, they bound themselves as one.

Yet despite their binding together in spirit and cause, there remained some things of which Brin could not bring herself to speak, even to Rone Leah. She could not tell him of the blood that Allanon had taken from his own ravaged body to place upon her—blood that in some way was meant to pledge her to him, even in death. Nor could she tell Rone of the uses to which she had put the wishsong—once in fury to destroy human life, a second time in desperation to save it. She could speak of none of these things to the highlander—in part because she did not fully understand them, in part because the implications frightened her so greatly that she was not sure she wanted to. The blood oath was too remote in purpose now for her to dwell upon, and the uses of the wishsong were the result of emotions that she promised herself she would not let get away from her again.

There was another reason for not speaking to Rone of these things. The highlander was troubled enough as matters stood by the loss of the Sword of Leah—so troubled, in fact, that it seemed he could think of little else. He meant to have the sword back again, he told her over and over. He would search it out and reclaim it whatever the cost. His insistence frightened her, for he seemed to have bound himself to the sword with such need that it was as if the weapon had somehow become a part of him. Without it, she guessed, the highlander did not believe that he could survive what lay ahead. Rone felt that without it he must surely be lost.

All the while she listened to him talk of this and thought about how deeply he seemed now to depend on the magic of the blade, she pondered as well her own dependence on the wishsong. It was just a toy, she had always told herself—but that was a lie. It was anything but a toy; it was magic every bit as dangerous as that contained in the missing Sword of Leah. It could kill. It was, in fact, what her father had always said—a birthright that she would have been better off without. Allanon had warned her as he lay dying: “The power of the wishsong is like nothing I have ever seen.” The words whispered darkly as she listened to Rone. Power to heal; power to destroy—she had seen them both. Must she be as dependent on the magic as Rone now seemed to be? Between her and the Elven magic, which was to be master?

Her father had fought his own battle to discover the answer to that question, she knew. He had fought it when he had struggled to overcome his inability to master the power of the magic contained within the Elfstones. He had done so, survived the staggering forces it had unleashed within him, and then cast it aside forever. Yet his brief use of the power had exacted its price—a transmutation of the magic from the Elfstones to his children. So now, perhaps, the battle must be fought yet another time. But what if this time the power could not be controlled?

The second day drifted into night. The Valegirl and the highlander ate the meal brought to them by the trader and watched the darkness deepen. When Rone had grown weary and rolled into his blankets to sleep, Brin slipped out into the cool autumn night to breathe smells that were sharp and clean and to lose herself for a time in skies grown bright with a crescent moon and stars. On her way past the trading center, she caught sight of the trader as he sat smoking his pipe on the empty veranda, his high-backed chair tilted against the rail. No one had come by for drinks or talk that evening, so he sat alone.

Quietly, she walked over to him.

“Evening,” he greeted hastily, sitting forward a bit too quickly in the chair, almost as if he were poised to flee.

Brin nodded. “We will be leaving in the morning,” she informed him and thought she detected a look of immediate relief in his dark eyes. “But I wanted to thank you first for your help.”

He shook his head. “No need.” He paused, brushing back his thinning hair. “I’ll see to it that you have some supplies to get you through the first few days or so.”

Brin didn’t argue. It was pointless to do anything other than simply to accept what was offered.

“Would you have an ash bow?” she asked, thinking suddenly of Rone. “One that could be used for hunting when we  . . . ?”

“Ash bow? Got one right here, as a matter of fact.” The trader was on his feet at once. He ducked through the doorway leading into the center and emerged a moment later with a bow and quiver of arrows. “You take these,” he pressed. “No charge, of course. Good, solid weapons. Belong to you, anyway, since they were dropped by those fellows you chased off.” He caught himself, and cleared his throat self-consciously. “Anyway, you take them,” he finished.

He set them down in front of her and dropped back into his chair, fingers drumming nervously on the wooden arm.

Brin picked up the bow and arrows. “They don’t really belong to me, you know,” she said quietly. “Especially not because of  . . . what happened.”

The trader looked down at his feet. “Don’t belong to me, either. You take them, girl.”

There was a long silence. The trader stared past her resolutely into the dark. Brin shook her head. “Do you know anything of the country east of here?” she asked him.

He kept his eyes turned away. “Not much. It’s bad country.”

“Is there anybody who might know?”

The trader didn’t answer.

“What about the woodsman who was here the other night?”

“Jeft?” The trader was silent for a moment. “I suppose. He’s been a lot of places.”

“How would I find him?” she pressed, growing increasingly uncomfortable with the man’s reticence.

The trader’s brows knitted. He was thinking about what answer he should give her. Finally, he looked directly at her. “You don’t mean him any harm, do you, girl?”

Brin stared at him sadly for a moment, then shook her head. “No, I don’t mean him any harm.”

The trader studied her a moment, then looked away. “He’s a friend, you see.” Then he pointed out toward the Chard Rush. “He’s got a camp a few miles downriver, south bank.”

Brin nodded. She started to turn away, then stopped. “I am the same person I was when you helped me that first night,” she said quietly.

Leather boots scuffed against the wooden planks of the porch. “Maybe it just don’t seem that way to me,” came the response.

Her mouth tightened. “You don’t have to be afraid of me, you know. You really don’t.”

The boots went still and the trader looked down at them. “I’m not afraid,” he said, his voice low.

She waited a moment longer, searching futilely for something more to say, then turned and walked into the dark.

The following morning, shortly after daybreak, Brin and Rone departed the Rooker Line Trading Center for the country that lay east. Carrying foodstuffs, blankets, and the bow supplied by the trader, they bade the anxious man farewell and disappeared into the trees.

It was a bright, warm day that greeted them. As they made their way downriver along the south bank of the Chard Rush, the air was filled with the sounds of forest life and the smell of drying leaves. A west wind blew gently out of the distant Wolfsktaag, and leaves drifted earthward in lazy spirals to lie thick upon the forest ground. Through the trees, the land ahead could be seen to run on in a gentle sloping of rises and vales. Squirrels and chipmunks scattered and darted away at the sound of their approach, interrupted in their preparations for a winter that seemed far distant from this day.

At midmorning, Valegirl and highlander paused to rest for a time, sitting side by side on an old log, hollowed out and worm-eaten with age. In front of them, barely a dozen yards distant, the Chard Rush flowed steadily eastward into the deep Anar; in its grasp, deadwood and debris that was washed down from out of the high country twisted and turned in intricate patterns.

“It’s still hard for me to believe that he’s really gone,” Rone said after a time, eyes gazing out across the river.

Brin didn’t have to ask whom he meant. “For me, too,” she acknowledged softly. “I sometimes think that he really isn’t gone at all—that I was mistaken in what I saw—that if I am patient, he will come back, just as he always has.”

“Would that be so strange?” Rone mused. “Would it be so surprising if Allanon were to do exactly that?”

The Valegirl looked at him. “He is dead, Rone.”

Rone kept his face turned away, but nodded. “I know.” He was quiet for a moment before continuing. “Do you think that there was anything that could have been done to save him, Brin?”

He looked at the girl then. He was asking her if there was anything that
he
could have done. Brin’s smile was quick and bitter. “No, Rone. He knew that he was going to die; he was told that he would not complete this quest. He had accepted the inevitability of that, I think.”

Rone shook his head. “I would not have done so.”

“Nor I, I suppose,” Brin agreed. “Perhaps that was why he chose to tell us nothing of what was to happen. And perhaps his acceptance is something we cannot hope to understand, because we could never hope to understand him.”

The highlander leaned forward, his arms braced against his outstretched legs. “So the last of the Druids disappears from the land, and there is no one left to stand against the walkers except you and me.” He shook his head hopelessly. “Poor us.”

Brin glanced down self-consciously at her hands, folded in her lap before her. She remembered Allanon touching her forehead with his blood as he lay dying and she shivered with the memory.

“Poor us,” she echoed softly.

They rested for a few minutes longer, then resumed their journey east. Barely an hour later, they crossed a shallow, gravel-bottomed stream that meandered lazily away from the swifter flow of the main channel of the Chard Rush back along a worn gully. They caught sight of a single-room cabin that sat back in among the forest trees. Built from hand-cut logs laid crosswise and caulked with mortar, the little home was settled in a clearing upon a small rise that formed a threshold to a series of low hills sloping gently away into the forest. A handful of sheep and goats and a single milk cow grazed in the timber behind the cabin. At the sound of their approach, an aged hunting dog rose from his favorite napping spot next to the cabin stoop and stretched contentedly.

The woodsman Jeft stood at the far side of the little clearing, stripped to the waist as he cut firewood. With a sure, practiced swing downward of the long-handled axe, he split the piece of timber that stood upright on the worn stump that served as a chopping block. Working the embedded blade free, he brushed aside the cloven halves before pausing in his work to watch his visitors approach. Lowering the axe-head to the stump, he rested his gnarled hands on the smooth butt of the handle and waited.

“Morning,” Brin greeted as they came up to him.

“Morning,” the woodsman replied, nodding. He seemed not at all surprised that they were there. He glanced at Rone. “Feeling a bit better, are you?”

“Much,” Rone answered. “Thanks in part to you, I’m told.”

The woodsman shrugged, the muscles on his powerful body knotting. He gestured toward the cabin. “There’s drinking water on the stoop in that bucket. I bring it fresh from the hills in back each day.”

He led them down to the cabin porch and the promised bucket. All three took a long drink. Then they seated themselves on the stoop, and the woodsman produced pipe and tobacco. He offered the pouch to his guests, but they declined, so he packed the bowl of his own pipe and began to smoke.

“Everything fine back at the trading center?” he asked casually. There was a long silence. “I heard about what happened the other night with that bunch from Spanning Ridge country.”

His eyes shifted slowly to Brin. “Word has a way of getting around a lot quicker than you’d think out here.”

The Valegirl held his gaze, ignoring her discomfort. “The trader told us where to find you,” she informed him. “He said you might be able to help us.”

The woodsman puffed on the pipe. “In what way?”

“He told us that you know as much as anyone about this country.”

“I’ve been out here a long time,” the man agreed.

Brin leaned forward. “We are already in your debt for what you did to help us back at the trading center. But we need your help again. We need to find a way through the country that lies east of here.”

The woodsman stared at her sharply, then slowly removed the pipe from between his teeth. “East of here? You mean Darklin Reach?”