The old man regarded her silently, his sticklike body hunched and bent, his shaggy eyebrows knitting petulantly. Then abruptly he threw us his hands and shook his white head in resignation.

      "Oh, very well-anything to get rid of you!" He sighed deeply aced did his best to look put upon. "It won't help you a whit, you understand-not a whit!"

      The Valegirl waited wordlessly. Behind her, Rone had turned back again. The old man cocked his head, reflecting. One thin hand ran quickly through the tangled hair.

      "Old Cogline is right over there at the foot of the big rock." He waved his hand almost casually in the direction of Hearthstone. "Right where I buried him almost a year ago."

 

 

      30

Brin Ohmsford stared fixedly at the old man, disappointment welling up inside and choking back the exclamation forming in her throat. One hand lifted in a helpless gesture.

      "You mean that Cogline is dead?"

      "Dead and buried!" the truculent oldster snapped. "Now be on your way and leave me in peace!"

      He waited impatiently for the Valegirl and the highlander to go, but Brin could not bring herself to move. Cogline dead? Somehow she could not accept that he was. Would not word of that death by some means have gotten back to the woodsman Jeft or to others who lived in the forests that lay about the Rooker Line Trading Center? A man who had lived for as long as Cogline had in this wilderness, a man known to so many...? She caught herself. Possibly not, for woodsmen and trappers often stayed apart for months at a time. But who then was this old man? The woodsman had made no mention of him. Somehow it was all wrong.

      "Let's go, Brin," Rone called to her gently.

      But the Valegirl shook her head. "No. Not until I'm sure. Not until I can..."

      "Get out of my house!" the old man repeated once again, stamping his foot petulantly. "I have put up with enough from you! Cogline is dead! Now if you're not gone from here by the time I..."

"Grandfather!"

      The voice broke sharply from out of the wooded darkness to their left where, in the distance, the rugged pinnacle of Hearthstone loomed blackly through the interwoven branches of the silent trees. Three heads jerked about as one, and the forest went suddenly still. Whisper reappeared to one side of them, his blue eyes luminous, his great, shaggy head raised and searching. The old man muttered to himself and stamped his foot one time more.

      Then there was a soft rustling of leaves and the mysterious speaker appeared, stepping lightly into clearing. Brin and Rone turned to each other in surprise. It was a girl, barely older than Brin, her small, supple form clothed in pants and tunic and wrapped loosely in a braided short cloak of forest green. Long, curling ringlets of thick, dark hair hung down about her shoulders, softly shadowing a sun-browned, faintly freckled pixie face that was strangely beguiling, almost compelling in its look of innocence. It was a pretty face, and while not truly beautiful in the way of Brin's, appealing nevertheless with its uncomplicated freshness and vitality. Dark, intelligent eyes mirrored frankness and honesty as she studied the Valegirl and the highlander curiously.

      "Who are you?" she asked in a tone of voice that suggested that she had a right to know.

      Brin glanced again at Rone and then back to the girl. "I'm Brin Ohmsford from Shady Vale and this is Rone Leah. We've come north from our homes in the Southland below the Rainbow Lake.

      "You have come a long way," the girl observed. "Why are you here?"

      "To find a man named Cogline."

      "Do you know this man, Brin Ohmsford?"

      "No."

      "Then why do you look for him?"

      The girl's eyes never left hers. Brin hesitated, wondering how much she should tell her. There was something about this girl that warned against lying, and Brin had not missed the way in which her sudden appearance had quieted the old man and brought back the disappearing cat. Still, the Valegirl was reluctant to reveal the whole of her reason for their being at Hearthstone without first finding out who she was.

      "We were told that Cogline was the man who best knew the forestland from Darklin Reach east to the Ravenshorn," she replied guardedly. "We were hoping he would offer his services on a matter of great importance."

      The girl was silent for a moment, apparently considering what Brin had told her. The old man shuffled over to where she stood and began fidgeting..

      "They're trespassers and troublemakers!" he insisted vehemently.

      The girl did not reply nor even look at him, her dark eyes still locked into grin's, her slim form motionless. The old man threw up his hands in exasperation.

      "You shouldn't even be talking with them! You should throw them out!"

      The girl shook her head slowly then. "Hush, grandfather," she cautioned. "They mean us no harm. Whisper would know if they did."

      Brin glanced quickly at the big cat, who was stretched out almost playfully in the tall grass bordering the little pond, one great paw flicking idly at some hapless insect flying past. The great oval eyes shone like twin beacons of light as he glanced over at them.

      "That fool animal won't even come when I call him!" the old man groused. "How can you depend on him?"

      The girl looked at the old man reprovingly, a hint of defiance crossing her youthful features. "Whisper!" she called softly and pointed at Brin. "Track!"

      The big cat suddenly came to his feet and without a sound padded over to Brin. The Valegirl stiffened as the beast's black muzzle sniffed tentatively at her clothing. Cautiously, she started to step back.

      "Stand still," the girl advised her quietly.

      Brin did as she was told. Forcing herself to remain outwardly calm, she stood frozen in place as the huge animal sniffed downward along her pant leg in a leisurely fashion. The girl was testing her, she realized-using the cat to see how she would react. The skin on the back of her neck prickled as the muzzle pushed at her. What should she do? Should she continue just to stand there? Should she touch the beast to show that she was not afraid? But she was afraid, and the fear was spreading all through her. Surely the animal would smell it, and then...

      She made up her mind. Softly, she began to sing. The words hovered in the dark stillness of the evening, floating in the quiet of the little clearing, reaching out, touching like gentle fingers.

      It took only a few moments for the wishsong's magic to weave its spell, and the giant cat sat back on its haunches, luminous eyes on the Valegirl. Blinking in sleepy cadence to the song, he lay docilely at her feet.

      Brin went still. For an instant, no one spoke.

      "Devils!" the old man shrilled finally, a shrewd look on his weathered face.

      The girl came forward wordlessly and stood directly in front of Brin. There was no fear in her eyes, merely curiosity. "How did you do that?" she asked, sounding puzzled. "I didn't think anyone could do that."

      "It's a gift," Brin answered.

      The girl hesitated. "You're not a devil, are you? You're not one of the walkers or their spirit kin?"

      Brin smiled. "No, nothing like that. I just have this gift."

      The girl shook her head in disbelief. "I did not think anyone could do that to Whisper," she repeated.

      "They're devils!" the old man insisted and stamped his sandaled foot.

      Whisper, meanwhile, had come back to his feet and moved over to Rone. The highlander started in surprise, then shot Brin an imploring look as the beast pushed his black muzzle against him. For a  moment longer Whisper sniffed the highlander's clothing in curious fashion. Then abruptly the great jaws opened and fastened loosely about his right boot and began to tug. What remained of Rone's composure began to slip rapidly away, and he tried to pull free.

      "I think he wants to play with you," the girl announced, a faint smile forming on her lips. She directed a knowing look at the old man, who merely grunted his displeasure and moved several paces further away from them all.

      "Well...could you...make sure?" Rone gasped in exasperation, struggling valiantly now to keep his feet as the great cat continued to pull and tug vigorously at the worried boot.

      "Whisper!" the girl called sharply.

      The huge creature released his grip instantly and trotted to her side. She reached out from beneath the short cloak and rubbed the shaggy head roughly, her long dark hair falling down about her face as she leaned forward to place her head close to his. She spoke softly to him for a moment, then glanced back at Brin and Rone.

      "You seem to have a way with animals. Whisper is quite taken with you."

      Brin cast a quick glance at Rone, who was struggling to pull his boot back in place on his foot. "I think Rone would be just as happy if Whisper didn't take to him quite so much," she observed.

      The girl smiled broadly then, a hint of mischievousness flashing briefly in her dark eyes. "I like you, Brin Ohmsford. You are welcome here-both you and Rone Leah." She extended a slim brown hand in greeting. "I am Kimber Boh."

      Brin accepted the hand, feeling in its grip a mixture of strength and softness that surprised her. She was surprised, too, when she caught sight of a brace of wicked-looking long knives strapped to the girl's slim waist beneath the shore cloak.

      "Well, they're not welcome as far as I'm concerned!" the old man snapped from behind the girl, making a gesture of brushing them all aside with a broad sweep of one sticklike arm.

      "Grandfather!" Kimber Boh admonished. She gave him a sharp look of disapproval and then turned back to Brin. "You mustn't mind him. He is very protective of me. I am all the family he has, so he sometimes feels..."

      "Don't be so quick to tell them everything about us!" the old man interrupted, shaking his wispish head in dismay. "What do we know of them? How can we be sure what really brought them here? That girl has a devil's voice if she can back off Whisper like she did! No, you are much too trusting, girl!"

      "And you are much too quick to distrust," Kimber Boh replied evenly. Her pixie face tightened with resolve. "Now tell them who you are."'

      The old man's mouth screwed into a vise. "I'll tell them nothing!"

      "Tell them, grandfather."

      The sandaled foot stamped petulantly. "Tell them yourself. You think you know so much more than me!"

      Rone Leah had come forward to stand next to Brin, and the two glanced at each other awkwardly. Whisper looked up ac the highlander, yawned and dropped his massive head back onto his paws. A deep, purring sound rose out of his throat as his blue eyes slipped shut.

      Kimber Boh turned to face the Valegirl and the highlander. "My grandfather forgets sometimes that the games he is so fond of playing are not real. One of the games he plays often involves changing who he is. He does this by deciding to bury the old self and start life over. He last did this about a year ago." She gave the old man a knowing look. "But he is who he always was. He is, in fact, the man you have come to find."

      "Then he really is Cogline." Brin made it a statement of fact.

      "I am not Cogline!" the old man insisted heatedly. "He's dead and buried, just like I told you! Don't be listening to what she has to say!"

      "Grandfather!" Kimber Boh admonished once more. "You are who you are, and you cannot be otherwise. Pretending is for children. You were born Cogline and that is who you will always be. Now please try to e a good host to your guests. Try to be their friend."

      "Ha! I didn't invite them here, so I don't have to be a good host!" Cogline snapped obstinately, determined to have nothing whatsoever, to do with either the Valegirl or the highlander. "As for being their friend, you be their friend if you want-that's up to you!"

      Brin and Rone looked at each other doubtfully. It did not appear that they were going to have much luck obtaining help from the old man in finding their way through Darklin Reach.

      "Very well, grandfather-I shall be host and friend for the both of us." Kimber Boh sighed. She faced them squarely, ignoring the old man.. "It's growing late. You have come a long way and you need food and rest. Home is just a short distance from here, and you are welcome to stay the night as my guests-and my grandfather's."

      She paused to consider something more. "In fact, it would be a great favor to me if you would stay. Few travelers come this far east, and even then I seldom have a chance to talk with them. As I said, grandfather is very protective. But perhaps you would consent to talk with me-to tell me something of your home in the Southland. Would you do that?"

      Brin smiled wearily. "For a place to sleep and something to eat, I think that is the least we could do."

      Rone nodded in agreement, although not without an apprehensive glance at Whisper.

      "It is settled then," Kimber Boh announced. She called to the big cat, who rose, stretched leisurely and padded up to her. "If you will follow me, we can be there in a few minutes' time."

      She turned, with Whisper beside her, and disappeared back into the forest. The Valegirl and the highlander hitched up their backpacks and followed. As they passed Cogline, the old man refused to look at them, staring at the ground in grim determination, his heavy brows furrowed.

      "Dratted trespassers!" he muttered.

      Then with a wary glance about, he shuffled after them into

      A moment later, the little clearing stood empty.

 

 

      31

Home for the girl, the old man, and the disappearing cat was a pleasant, but very average-looking stone and timber cottage situated in a broad, grass-covered clearing sheltered by centuries-old oak and red elm. Porches ran along the front and rear of the cottage, and the walls were grown thick with flowering vines and bush evergreens. Stone walkways ran from the home through gardens that lay all about-some flower, some vegetable, all carefully tended and neatly draw. Spruce and pine lined the perimeter of the clearing, and hedgerows ran along the borders of a gardens. A great amount of work had gone into the care and nurture of the entire grounds.

      The same care was evident inside the cottage. Neat and spotlessly clean, the sanded wood plank floors and timbered walls gleamed in the soft light of the oil lamps, polished and waxed. Handcrafts of woven cloth and cross-stitch hung from the walls, and bright tapestries draped the rough wooden furniture and windows. Odd pieces of silver and crystal sat upon tables within a broad-shelved hutch, and the long trestle table at one end of the main room had been set with earthenware dishes and crafted utensils. Flowers blossomed from vases and clay pots, some grown from plantings, some cut and arranged. The whole of the cottage seemed bright and cheerful, even with the nightfall, and there was that feeling of a Vale home at every turn.

      "Dinner is almost ready," Kimber Boh announced when they had come inside, casting a reproachful glance in Cogline's direction. "If you will seat yourselves, I will put it on the table."

      Grumbling to himself, Cogline slid onto the bench at the far side of the table, while Brin and Rone sat down across from him. Whisper padded past them to a braided throw rug situated in front of a wide stone fireplace where a small stack of logs burned cheerfully. With a yawn, the cat curled up before the flames and fell asleep.

      The meal that Kimber Boh brought to them consisted of wild fowl, garden vegetables, fresh-baked breads, and goat's milk, and they consumed it hungrily. As they ate, the girl asked them questions of the Southland and its people, eager to hear of the world beyond her valley home. She had never been outside Darklin Reach, she explained, but someday soon now she would make the journey. Cogline scowled his disapproval, but said nothing, his head lowered in unyielding concentration on his plate. When dinner was finished, he rose with a sullen grunt and announced that he was going out for a smoke. He stalked through the door without a glance back at any of them and disappeared.

      "You really mustn't mind him," Kimber Boh apologized, rising to clear the dishes from the table. "He is very gentle and sweet, but he has lived alone for so many years that he finds it difficult to be comfortable with other people."

      Smiling, she removed the dishes from the table and returned with a container of burgundy-colored wine. Pouring a small amount into fresh glasses, she resumed her seat across from them. As they sipped at the wine and chatted amiably, Brin found herself wondering as she had wondered on and off from the first moment that she had laid eyes on the girl how it was that she and the old man had managed to survive alone in this wilderness. Of course, there was the cat, but nevertheless...

      "Grandfather walks every evening before dinner," Kimber Boh was relating, a reassuring look directed to the two who sat across from her. "He wanders about the valley a good deal when the late fall comes. All of our work is done for the year, and when winter comes he will not go out as much. His body hurts him sometimes in the cold weather, and he prefers the fire. But now, while the nights are still warm, he likes to walk."

      "Kimber, where are your parents?" Brin asked, unable to help herself. "Why are you here all alone?"

      "My parents were killed," the girl explained matter-of-factly. "I was just a child when Cogline found me, hidden in some bedding where the caravan had camped that last night at the north edge of the valley. He brought me to his home and raised me as his granddaughter." She leaned forward. "He has never had a family of his own, you see. I'm all he has."

      "How were your parents killed?" Rone wanted to know, seeing that the girl did not mind speaking of it.

      "Gnome raiders. Several families were traveling in the caravan; everyone was killed except me. They missed me, Cogline says." She smiled. "But that's been a long time ago."

      Rone sipped at his wine. "Kind of dangerous here for you, isn't it?"

      She looked puzzled. "Dangerous?"

      "Sure. Wilderness all around, wild animals, raiders-whatever. Aren't you a little afraid sometimes living alone out here?"

      She cocked her head slightly. "Do you think I should be?"

      The highlander glanced at Brin. "Well...I don't know."

      She stood up. "Watch this."

      Almost faster than his eye could follow, the girl had a long knife in her hand, whipping it past his head, flinging it the length of the room. It buried itself with a thud in a tiny black circle drawn on a timber in the far corner.

      Kimber Boh grinned. "I practice that all the time. I learned to throw the knife by the time I was ten. Cogline taught me. I am just as good with almost any other weapon you might care to name. I can run faster than anything that lives in Darklin Reach-except for Whisper. I can walk all day and all night without sleeping."

      She sat down again. "Of course, Whisper would protect me against anything that threatened me, so I don't have much to worry about." She smiled. "Besides, nothing really dangerous ever comes into Hearthstone. Cogline has lived here all his life; the valley belongs to him. Everyone knows that and they don't bother him. Even the Spider Gnomes stay out."

      She paused. "Do you know about the Spider Gnomes?"

      They shook their heads. The girl leaned forward. "They creep along the ground and up trees, all hairy and crooked, just like spiders. Once they tried to come into the valley, about three years ago. Several dozen of them came, all blackened with ash and anxious to hunt. They're not like the other Gnomes, you know, because they burrow and trap like spiders. Anyway, they came down into Hearthstone. I think they wanted it for their own. Grandfather knew about it right away, just as he always seems to know when something dangerous is about. He took Whisper with him and they ambushed the Spider Gnomes at the north end of the valley right by the big rock. The Spider Gnomes are still running."

      She grinned broadly, pleased with the story. Brin and Rone cast uneasy glances at each other, less sure than ever what to make of this girl.

      "Where did the cat come from?" Rone glanced again at Whisper, who continued to sleep undisturbed. "How does he disappear like that when he's so confounded big?"

      "Whisper is a moor cat," the girl explained. "Most such cats live in the swamps in the deep Anar, well east of Darklin Reach and the Ravenshorn. Whisper wandered into Olden Moor, though, when he was still a baby. Cogline found him and brought him here. He had been in a fight with something and was all cut up. We took care of him and he stayed with us. I learned to talk with him." She looked at Brin. "But not like you do, not singing to him like that. Can you teach me to do that, Brin?"

      Brin shook her head gently. "I don't think so, Kimber. The wishsong was something I was born with."

      "Wishsong," the girl repeated the word. "That's very pretty."

      There was a momentary silence. "So how does he disappear the way he does?" Rone asked once again.

      "Oh, he doesn't disappear," Kimber Boh explained with a laugh. "It just seems that way. The reason you can't see him sometimes is not because he isn't there, which he plainly is, but because he can change his body coloring to blend in with the forest-the trees, the rocks, the ground, whatever. He blends in so well that he can't be seen if you don't know how to look for him. After you've been around him long enough, you learn how to look for him properly." She paused. "Of course, if he doesn't wish to be found, then he probably won't be. That's part of his defense. It's become quite a game with grandfather. Whisper disappears and refuses to show himself until grandfather has yelled himself hoarse. Not very fair of him, really, because grandfather's eyes aren't as good as they used to be."

      "But he comes for you, I gather."

      "Always. He thinks I am his mother. I nursed him and cared for him when we first brought him back here. We're so close now that it's as if we're parts of the same person. Most of the time, we even seem to be able to sense what each other is thinking."

      "He looks dangerous to me," Rone stated flatly.

      "Oh, he is," the girl agreed. "Very dangerous. Wild, he would be uncontrollable. But Whisper is no longer wild. There may be a small part of him that still is, a memory or an instinct buried deep inside somewhere, but it's all but forgotten now."

      She rose and poured them each a bit more of the wine. "Do you like our home?'' she asked them after a moment.

      "Very much," Brin replied.

      The girl smiled, obviously pleased. "I did most of the decorations myself-except for the glass and silver things; those were brought by grandfather from his trips. Or some he had before I came. But the rest, I did. And the gardens-I planted those. All the flowers and shrubs and vegetables-all the small bushes and vines. I like the colors and the sweet smells."

      Brin smiled, too. Kimber Boh was a mixture of child and woman-in some ways still young, in some grown beyond her years. It was strange, but she reminded the Valegirl of Jair. Thinking of it made her miss her brother terribly.

      Kimber Boh saw the look that crossed her face and mistook it. "It really isn't dangerous here at Hearthstone," she assured the Valegirl. "It may seem that way to you because you are not familiar with the country, as I am. But this is my home, remember-this is where I grew up. Grandfather taught me when I was little what I should know in order to protect myself. I have learned to deal with what dangers there are; I know how to avoid them. And I have grandfather and Whisper. You don't have to be worried about me-really, you don't."

      Brin smiled at the assurance. "I can see that I don't, Kimber. I can see that you are very capable."

      To her surprise, Kimber Boh blushed. Then hurriedly the girl stood up and walked to where Cogline had dropped his forest cloak on the arm of the wooden rocker. "I have to take grandfather his coat," she announced quickly. "It's cold out there. Would you like to walk with me?"

      Valegirl and highlander rose and followed as she opened the door and stepped outside. The moment the latch clicked free, Whisper was on his feet, padding silently through the door after them.

      They paused momentarily on the porch of the little cottage, losing themselves in the splendor of the evening's peaceful, almost mystical still-life. The air was chill and faintly damp and smelled sweetly of the darkened forest. White moonlight bathed the lawn, flower gardens, neatly trimmed hedgerows, and shrubs with dazzling brightness. Each blade of grass, soft petal, and tiny leaf glistened wetly, deep emerald laced with frost as the dew of the autumn evening gathered. In the blackness beyond, the trees of the forest rose against the star-filled sky like monstrous giants-ageless, massive, frozen in the silence of the night. The gentle wind of early dusk had faded entirely now, drifting soundlessly into stillness. Even the familiar cries of the woodland creatures had softened to faint and distant murmurs that soothed and comforted.

      "Grandfather will be at the willow," Kimber Boh said softly, breaking the spell.

      Together, they moved off the porch onto the walkway that led to the rear of the cottage. No one spoke a word. They simply walked slowly, the girl leading, their boots scraping softly against the worn stone. Something skittered through the dry leaves in the dark curtain of the forest and was gone. A bird called sharply, its piercing cry echoing in the stillness, lingering on.

      The three moved past the corner of the house now, through groupings of pine and spruce and lines of hedgerows. Then a huge, sagging willow appeared from out of the darkness of the edge of the forest, its branches trailing in thick streamers that hung like a curtain against the night. Massive and gnarled, its humped form lay wrapped in shadowed darkness, as if drawn inward onto itself. There, beneath its canopied arch, the bowl of a pipe glowed deep red in the darkness, and puffs of smoke rose skyward to thin and vanish.

      As they passed through the trailing limbs of the willow, they saw clearly the skeletal form of Cogline, hunched over on one of a pair of wooden benches that had been placed at the base of the ancient trunk, his wizened face turned toward the darkened forest. Kimber Boh went directly over to him and placed the forest cloak about his shoulders.

      "You will catch cold, grandfather," she scolded gently.

      The old man grimaced. "Can't even come out here for a smoke without you hovering over me like a mother hen!" He pulled the cloak about him nevertheless as he glanced over at Brin and Rone. "And I don't need these two for company either. Or that worthless cat. I pose you brought him out here, too!"

      Brin looked about for Whisper and was surprised to find that he had disappeared again. A moment earlier, he had been right behind them.

      Kimber Boh seated herself next to her grandfather. "Why won't you at least try to be friends with Brin and Rone?" she asked him quietly.

      "What for?" the other snapped. "I don't need friends! Friends are nothing but trouble, always expecting you to do something for them, always wanting some favor or other. Had enough friends in the old days, girl. You don't understand enough about how life is, that's your trouble!"

      The girl glanced apologetically at Brin and Rone and nodded toward the empty bench. Wordlessly, the Valegirl and the highlander sat down across from her.

      Kimber Boh turned back to the old man. "You must not be like that. You must not be so selfish."

      "I'm an old man. I can be what I want!" Cogline muttered petulantly.

      "When I used to say things like that, you called me spoiled and sent me to my room. Do you remember?"

      "That was different!"

      "Should I send you to your room?" she asked, speaking to the old man as a mother would to her child, her hands clasping his. "Or perhaps you would prefer it if Whisper and I also had nothing more to do with you since we are your friends, too, and you do not seem to want any friends."

      Cogline clamped his teeth about the stem of his pipe as if he might bite it through and hunched down sullenly within the cloak, refusing to answer. Brin glanced quickly over at Rone, who arched one eyebrow in response. It was clear to both that despite her age, it was Kimber Boh who was the stabilizing force in this strange little family.

      The girl leaned over then and kissed her grandfather's cheek softly. "I know that you don't really believe what you said. I know you are a good, kind, gentle man, and I love you." She brought her arms about his thin frame and hugged him close.

      To Brin's surprise, the old man's arm came up tentatively and hugged her back.

      "They should have asked before they came here," he muttered, gesturing vaguely toward the Valegirl and the highlander. "I might have hurt them, you know."

      "Yes, grandfather, I know," the girl responded. "But now that they are here, after having made such a long journey to find you, I think you should see why it is that they have come and if there is anything you can do to help them."

      Brin and Rone exchanged hurried glances once more. Cogline slipped free of Kimber Boh's arms, muttering and shaking his head, wispish hair dancing in the moonglow like fine silk thread.

      "Dratted cat, where's he got to this time! Whisper! Come out here, you worthless beast! I'm not sitting around..."

      "Grandfather!" the girl interrupted him firmly. The old man looked at her in startled silence, and she nodded toward Brin and Rone. "Our friends, grandfather-will you ask them?"

      The wrinkles in the old man's face creased deeper as he frowned. "Oh, very well," he huffed irritably. "What was it that brought you here?"

      "We have need of someone who can show us a way through this country," Brin replied at once, hardly daring to hope that the help they so badly needed might at last be offered. "We were told that Cogline was the one man who might know that way."

      "Except that there isn't any Cogline anymore!" the oldster snapped, but a warning glance from the girl quieted him at once.

      "Well then, what country is it that you plan to travel through?"

      "The central Anar," Brin answered. "Darklin Reach, the moor beyond-all the way east to the Ravenshorn." She paused. "Into the Maelmord."

      "But the walkers are there!" Kimber Boh exclaimed.

      "What reason would you have for going into that black pit?" the old man followed up heatedly.

      Brin hesitated, seeing where matters were headed. "To destroy the walkers."

      "Destroy the walkers!" Cogline was aghast. "Destroy them with what, girl?"

      "With the wishsong. With the magic that..."

      "With the wishsong? With that singing? That's what you plan to use?" Cogline was on his feet, leaping about wildly, skeletal arms gesturing. "And you think me mad? Get out of here! Get out of my house! Get out, get out!"

      Kimber Boh rose and gently pulled the old man back down on the bench, talking to him, soothing him as he continued to rant. It took a few moments to quiet him. Then wrapping him once more in the forest cloak, she turned again to Brin and Rone.

      "Brin Ohmsford," she addressed the Valegirl solemnly, her face quite stern. "The Maelmord is no place for you. Even I do not go there."

      Brin almost smiled at the other's emphasis on her own forbidding. "But I do not have a choice in this, Kimber," she explained gently. "I have to go."

      "And I have to go with her," Rone added grudgingly. "When I find the sword again, at is. I have to find the sword first."

      Kimber looked at them each in turn and shook her head in confusion. "I don't understand. What sword? Why is it that you have to go into the Maelmord? Why is it that you have to destroy the walkers?

      Again Brin hesitated, this time in caution. How much should she reveal of the quest that had brought her to this land? How much should she tell of the truth that had been entrusted to her? But as she looked into the eyes of Kimber, the caution that bade her keep watch over all that she so carefully hid suddenly ceased to have meaning. Allanon was dead, gone forever from the Four Lands. The magic he had given Rone in order that he might protect her was lost. She was alone, weary, and frightened, despite the determination that carried her forward on this impossible journey; if she were to survive what lay ahead, she knew she must take what help she could find where she might find it. Hidden truths and clever deceptions had been a way of life for Allanon, a part of the person that he had been. It could never be so for her.

      So she told the girl and the old man all that had been told to her and all that had befallen her since Allanon had first appeared in the village of Shady Vale those many days gone past. She hid nothing of the truth save those secrets she kept hidden even from Rone, those frightening suspicions and unpleasant whisperings of the powers, dark and unfathomable, of the wishsong. It took a long time to tell it all, but for once the old man was quiet and the girl listened with him in silent wonderment.

      When she had finished, she turned to Rone to see if there were anything further that should be said, but the highlander shook his head wordlessly.

      "You see, then, that I have to go," she repeated the words one final time, looking from the girl to the old man and back again, waiting.

      "Elven magic in you, eh?" Cogline murmured, eyes piercing. "Druid's touch on the whole of what you do. I've a bit of that touch myself, you know-a bit of the dark lore. Yes. Yes, I do."

      Kimber touched his arm gently. "Can we help them find their path east, grandfather?"

      "East? Whole of the country east is known to me-all that there is, here to there and back. Hearthstone, Darklin Reach, Olden Moor-all to the Ravenshorn, all to the Maelmord." He shook his wispish head thoughtfully. "Kept the touch, I have. Walkers don't bother me here; walkers don't come into the valley. Outside, they go where they please, though. That's their country."

      "Grandfather, listen to me," she prodded him gently. "We must help our friends, you and Whisper and I."

      Cogline looked at her wordlessly for a moment, then threw up his hands. "Waste of time!" he announced. "Ridiculous waste of time!" His bony finger came up to touch the girl's nose. "Have to think better than that; girl. I taught you to think better than that! Suppose we do help; suppose we take these two right through Darklin Reach, right through Olden Moor, right to the Ravenshorn and the black pit itself. Suppose! What, then? Tell me! What then?"

      "That would be enough..." Brin started to reply.

      "Enough?" Cogline exclaimed, cutting her short. "Not nearly so, girl! Cliffs rise up before you like a wall, hundreds of feet high. Barren rock for miles. Gnomes everywhere. What happens then? What do you do then?" The finger shifted like a dagger to point at her. "No way in, girl! There's no way in! You cannot go all that distance unless you know a way in!"

      "We will find a way," Brin assured him firmly.

      "Bah!" The old man spit, grimacing. "Walkers would have you in a moment! They'll see you coming halfway up the climb-if you can find a place to make the climb, that is! Or can the magic make you invisible? Can it do that?"

      Brin set her jaw. "We will find a way," she repeated.

      "Maybe and maybe not," Rone spoke up suddenly. "I don't like the sound of it, Brin. The old man knows the country and if he says it's all open ground, then we ought to take that into account before we go charging in." He glanced at Cogline as if to reassure himself that the old man did in fact know what he was talking about. "Besides, first things first. Before we start off on this trek through the Eastland, we have to recover the sword. It's the only real protection we have against the walkers."

      "There is no protection against the walkers!" Cogline snorted.

      Brin stared at the highlander for a moment, then took a deep breath. "Rone, we have to forget about the sword," she told him gently. "It's gone and we have no way of finding what's become of it. Allanon said it would find its way again into human hands, but he did not say whose hands those would be nor did he say how long it would take for this to happen. We cannot..."

      "Without a sword to protect us, we don't take another step!" Rone's jaw tightened as he cut short the rest of what Brin was about to say.

      There was a to silence. "We have no choice," Brin said. "At least, I don't."

      "On your way, then." Cogline brushed them both aside with a wave of his hand. "On your way and leave us in peace-you with your foolish plans of scaling the pit and destroying the walkers; foolish, foolish plans! Go on, fly on out of our home, dratted...Whisper, where have you got to, you worthless...Show yourself or I'll...Yiiii!"

      He shrieked in surprise as the big cat's head appeared from out of the darkness at his shoulder, luminous eyes blinking, cold muzzle pressed right up against his bare arm. Furious at being surprised like that, Cogline swatted at the cat and stalked a dozen yards away beneath the willow boughs, swearing as he went. Whisper stared after him, then walked about the bench to lie down next to Kimber.

      "I think that grandfather can be persuaded to show you the way east-at least as far as the Ravenshorn," Kimber Boh mused thoughtfully. "As to what you will do after that..."

      "Wait a minute-just...let's think this through a moment." Rone held up his hands imploringly. He turned to Brin. "I know you have decided to complete this quest that Allanon has given you. I understand that you must. And I'm going with you, right to the end of it. But we have to have the sword, Brin. Don't you see that? We have to! We have no other weapons with which to stand against the Mord Wraiths!" His face tightened with frustration. "For cat's sake, how can I protect you without the sword?"

      Brin hesitated then, thinking suddenly of the power of the wishsong and of what she had seen that power do to those men from west of Spanning Ridge at the Rooker Line Trading Center. Rone did not know, nor did she want him to, but power such as that was more weapon than she cared to think-and she loathed the very idea that it could live within her. Rone was so certain that he must regain the use of the power of the Sword of Leah. But she sensed somehow that, as with the magic of the wishsong and the magic of the Elfstones before it, the magic of the Sword of Leah was both light and dark at once-that it could cause harm to the user as well as give him aid.

      She looked at Rone, seeing in his gray eyes the love he bore for her mingled with the certainty that he could not help her without the magic that Allanon had given him. That look was desperate-yet without understanding of what he asked.

      "There is no way for us to find the sword, Rone," she said softly.

      They faced each other wordlessly, seated close upon the wooden bench, lost in the shadowed dark of the old willow. Let it go, Brin prayed silently. Please, let it go. Cogline shambled back to join them, still muttering at Whisper as he squatted warily on one end of the bench and began fiddling with his pipe.

      "There might be a way," Kimber said suddenly, her small voice breaking through the silence. All eyes turned toward her. "We could ask the Grimpond."

      "Ha!" Cogline snorted. "Might as well ask a hole in the ground!"

      But Rone sat forward at once. "What is the Grimpond?"

      "An avatar," the girl answered quietly. "A shade that lives in a pool of water north of Hearthstone where the high ridges part. It has always lived there, it tells me-since before the destruction of the old world, since the time of the world of faerie. It has the magic of the old world in its touch and the sight to see secrets hidden from living people."

      "It could tell me where to find the Sword of Leah?" Rone pressed anxiously, ignoring the restraining. hand that Brin placed upon his arm.

      "Ha-ha, look at him!" Cogline cackled gleefully. "Thinks he has the answer now, doesn't he? Thinks he's found the way! The Grimpond has the secrets of the earth all bound up in a pretty package ready to give to him! Just a little problem of telling truth from lie, that's all! Ha-ha!"

       "What's he talking about?" Rone demanded angrily. "What does he mean, truth from lie?"

      Kimber gave her grandfather a stern look to quiet him, then turned back to the highlander. "He means that the avatar doesn't always tell the truth. It lies much of the time or tells riddles that no one can figure out. It makes a game out of it, twisting what is real and what is not so that the listener cannot decide what to believe."

      "But why does it do that?" Brin asked, bewildered.

      The girl shrugged. "Shades are like that. They drift between the world that was and the one that will be and have no real place in either."

      She said it with such authority that the Valegirl accepted what she said without questioning it further. Besides, it had been that way with the shade of Bremen as well-in part, at least. There was a sense of commitment in the shade of Bremen lacking perhaps in the Grimpond; but the shade of Bremen did not tell all of what it knew or speak clearly of what would be. Some of the truth could never be told. The whole of the future was never unalterably fixed, and the telling of it must always be shaded by what might yet be.

      "Grandfather prefers that I have nothing to do with the Grimpond," Kimber Boh was explaining to Rone. "He does not approve of the way the avatar lies. Still, its conversation is amusing sometimes, and it becomes an interesting game for me when I choose to play it." She assumed a stern look. "Of course, it is a different kind of game entirely when you try to commit the avatar to telling you the truth of what it knows when it is really important to you. I never ask it of the future or listen to what it has to say if it offers to tell me. It is a cruel thing, sometimes."

      Rone looked down momentarily, then up again at the girl. "Do you think it could be made to tell me what has happened to my sword?"

      Kimber's eyebrows lifted. "Not made. Persuaded, perhaps. Tricked, maybe." She looked at Brin. "But I was not just thinking of finding the sword. I was thinking as well of finding a way into the Ravenshorn and into the Maelmord. If there were a way by which the walkers could not see you coming, the Grimpond would know it."

      There was a long, anxious silence. Brin Ohmsford's mind raced. A way into the Maelmord that would hide them from the Mord Wraiths-it was the key that she needed in order to complete the quest for the Ildatch. She would have preferred that the Sword of Leah, with its magic and its power, remain lost. But what matter that it was found again if it need not be used? She glanced at Rone and saw the determination in his eyes. The matter was already decided for him.

      "We must try it, Brin," he said softly.

      Cogline's wrinkled face split wide in a leering grin. "Go on, Southlander-try it!" His soft laughter echoed through the night stillness.

      Brin hesitated. At her feet, stretched between the benches, his gray-black body curled close to his mistress, Whisper raised his massive head and blinked curiously. The Valegirl stared deep into the cat's saucer blue eyes. How desperate she had become that she must turn to the aid of a woods girl, a half-crazed old man, and a cat that disappeared.

      But Allanon was gone...

      "Will you speak to the Grimpond for us?" she asked Kimber.

      The girl smiled brightly. "Oh, I was thinking, Brin, that it might be better if it were you who spoke to the Grimpond."

      And it was then that Cogline really began to cackle.

 

 

      32

Cogline was still cackling on the morning following when the strange little company set forth on their journey to find the Grimpond. Muttering gleefully to himself, he skittered about through the leaf-strewn forest with careless disinterest for what he was about, lost in the shadowed, half-crazed world of his own mind. Yet the sharp old eyes strayed often to Brin's worried face, and there was cunning and shrewdness in their gaze. And there was always a sly, secretive mirth that whispered in his voice.

      "Try it, Southland girl-you must try it, indeed! Ha-ha! Speak with the Grimpond and ask it what you will! Secrets of all that is and all that will be! For a thousand thousand years the Grimpond has seen all of what human life has done with itself, watched with eyes that no other can have! Ask, Southland girl-touch the spirit thing and learn!"

      Then the cackle came and he danced away again. Time and again, Kimber Boh chastised him for his behavior with a quick word here, a hard look of disapproval there. The girl found the old man's behavior silly and embarrassing. But this had no effect on the old man and he kept on teasing and taunting.

      It was an iron gray, misted autumn day. The sky was packed with banks of clouds from the dark stretch of the Wolfsktaag west to the fading tips of the forest trees east. A cool breeze wafted down from out of the north, carrying in its wake dust and crumbling leaves that swirled and stung the face and eyes. The color of the woodlands was faded and worn in the morning light, and the first hint of winter's coming seemed to reflect in their gray cast.

      The tiny company traveled north out of Hearthstone with Kimber Boh in the lead, somber and determined; Brin and Rone Leah following close behind; old Cogline danced all about them as they walked; and Whisper ranged far afield through the dark tangle of the trees. They passed beneath the shadow of the towering rock that gave to the valley its name and on from the broad, scrub-free clearings of the sheltered hollow into the wilderness beyond. Deadwood and brush choked the forestland into which they journeyed, a chick and twisted mass of woods. As midday approached, the pace slowed to a crawl. Cogline no longer flitted about like a wild bird, for the wilderness hemmed them all close. They worked their way carefully ahead in a line. Only Whisper continued to roam free, passing like a shadow through the dark mass of the woods, soundless and sleek.

      The terrain had grown even more rugged by noontime, and in the distance the dark edge of a series of ridgelines lifted above the trees. Boulders and craggy drops cut apart the land through which they passed, and much of their progress now required that they climb. The wind was blocked away as the ridgelines drew nearer, and the forest smelled of rot and must.

      Then, at last, they climbed free of along, deep ravine and stood upon the crest of a narrow valley, angling downward through a pair of towering ridgelines that ran north until they were lost in a wall of mist.

      "There." Kimber pointed into the valley. A thick stand of pine surrounded a lake, its waters only partially visible within a blanket of mist that swirled and shifted with the currents of the wind.

      "The Grimpond!" Cogline cackled, his fingers stroking Brin's arm lightly, then slipping away.

      They passed through the maze of pine trees that choked the valley's broken slopes, winding their way steadily downward to where the mist stirred sluggishly above the little lake. No wind seemed to reach them here; the air had gone still, and the woodland was quiet. Whisper had disappeared entirely. Broken rock and pine needles lay scattered over the ground on which they walked, and their leather boots scraped and crunched with their passing. Though it was midday still, the clouds and mist screened away the light so completely that it appeared as if nightfall had set in. As she followed after the slight figure of Kimber Boh, Brin found herself listening to the silence of the forest, searching through the shadows for some sign of life. As she listened and searched, an uneasiness grew within her. There was indeed something here-something foul, something hidden. She could sense it waiting.

      Deep within the pines, the mist began to descend about them. Still they went on. When it seemed they must surely disappear into it completely, they stepped suddenly from the trees into a small clearing where aged stone benches ringed an open fire pit, its charred logs and ash black with the dampness.

      On the far side of the clearing, a rutted trail led away again into the mist.

      Kimber turned to Brin. "You must go alone from here. Follow the trail until you reach the edge of the lake. The Grimpond will come to you there."

      "And whisper secrets in your ear!" Cogline chortled, crouching next to her.

      "Grandfather," the girl admonished.

      "Truth and lies, but which is which?" Cogline cackled defiantly and skipped-away to the edge of the pines.

      "Do not be frightened by grandfather," Kimber advised, her pixie face a mask of concern as she saw Brin's troubled eyes. "No harm can come to you from the Grimpond. It is only a shade."

      "Maybe one of us should go with you," Rone suggested uneasily, but Kimber Boh immediately shook her head.

      "The Grimpond, will only speak with one person, never more. It will not even appear if there is more than one." The girl smiled encouragingly. "Brin must go alone."

      Brin nodded. "I guess that settles it."

      "Remember my warning," Kimber cautioned. "Be wary of what you are told. Much of it will be false or twisted."

      "But how am I to know what is false and what is true?" Brin asked her.

      Kimber shook her head once more. "You will have to decide that for yourself. The Grimpond will play games with you. It will appear to you and speak as it chooses. It will tease you. That is the way of the creature. It will play games. But perhaps you can play the games better than it can." She touched Brin's arm. "This is why I think you should speak to the Grimpond rather than I. You have the magic. Use it if you can. Perhaps you can find a way to make the wishsong help you."

      Cogline's laughter rang from the edge of the little clearing. Brin ignored it, pulled her forest cloak tightly about her, and nodded. "Perhaps. I will try."

      Kimber smiled, her freckled face wrinkling. Then she hugged the Valegirl impulsively. "Good luck, Brin."

      Surprised, Brin hugged her back, one hand coming up to stroke the long dark hair.

      Rone came forward awkwardly, then bent to kiss Brin. "Watch yourself."

      She smiled her promise to do so; then, gathering her cloak about her once more, she turned and walked into the trees.

      Shadows and mist closed about her almost at once, so utterly that she was lost a dozen, yards into the stretch of pine. It happened so quickly that she was still moving forward when she realized that she could no longer see anything about her. She hesitated then, peering rather hopelessly into the darkness, waiting for her sight to adjust. The air had gone cold again, and the mist from the lake penetrated her clothing with a chill, wet touch. A few moments passed, long and anxious, and then she discovered that she could discern vaguely the slender shapes of the pines closest at hand, fading and reappearing phantomlike through the swirling mist. It was not likely to get any better than it was, she decided. Shrugging off her discomfort and uncertainty, she walked cautiously ahead, groping with her outstretched hands, sensing rather than seeing the passage of the trail through the trees as it wound steadily downward toward the lake.

      The minutes slipped by, and she could hear the gentle lapping of water on a shoreline in the silence of the mist and the forest. She slowed and peered guardedly into the mist, searching for the thing she knew waited for her. But there was nothing to be seen except the gray haze. Carefully, she went forward.

      Then suddenly the trees and the mist thinned and parted before her, and she found herself standing on a narrow, rockstrewn shoreline looking out across the gray, clouded waters of the lake. Emptiness stretched away into the haze, and clouds of mist walled her about, closing her in...

      A chill slipped through her, hollowing out her body and leaving it a frozen shell. She glanced quickly about, frightened. What was there? Then anger welled up within, sharp, bitter, and hard as iron as it rose in retaliation. A fire burned away the cold, flaring through her with ferocious purpose, thrusting back the fear that threatened to overwhelm her. Standing on the shoreline of that little lake, alone within the concealing mist, she felt a strange power surge through her, strong enough, it seemed in that instant, to destroy anything that came against her.

      There was a sudden stirring from within the mist. Instantly, the strange sense of power was gone, fled like a thief, back into her soul. She did not understand what had happened to her in those few brief moments, and now there was no time to think on it; there was movement within the mist. A shadow drew together and took shape, dark drawn from the grayness. Risen and formed above the lake's waters, it began to advance.

      The Valegirl watched it come, a shrouded, spectral thing that glided in silence on the currents of the air, slipping from the mist toward the shoreline and the girl who waited. It was cloaked and hooded, as insubstantial as the mist out of which it had been born, human-shaped but featureless.

      The shade slowed and stopped a dozen feet before her, suspended above the waters of the lake. Robed arms folded loosely before it, and mist swirled outward from its gray form. Slowly its cowled head lifted to the girl on the shore, and twin pinpoints of red fire glimmered from within.

      "Look upon me, Valegirl," the shade whispered in a voice that sounded like steam set loose. "Look upon the Grimpond!"

      Higher the cowled head lifted and the shadows that masked the being's face fell away. Brin, stared in stunned disbelief.

      The face that the Grimpond showed to her was her own.

 

      Jair stirred awake in the dank and empty darkness of the Dun Fee Aran cell in which he lay imprisoned. A thin shaft of gray light slipped like a knife through the tiny airhole of the stonewalled cubicle. It was day again, he thought to himself, trying desperately to trace the time that had passed since he had first been brought there. It seemed like weeks, but he realized this was only the second day since his imprisonment. He had neither seen nor spoken with another living thing save the Mwellret and the silent Gnome jailer.

      Gingerly, he straightened and then sat upright within the stale gathering of straw. Chains bound his wrists and ankles, fixed in iron rings to the stone walls. He had been hobbled by these shackles since the second day of his imprisonment. The jailer had placed them on him at Stythys' command. As he shifted his weight, they clanked and rattled sharply in the deep silence, echoing down the corridors that lay without the cell's ironbound door. Weary despite the long sleep, he listened as the echoes died away, straining for some other sound to come back to him. None did. There was no one out there to hear him, no one to come to his aid.

      Tears welled up in his eyes then, flowing down his cheeks, and wetting the soiled front of his tunic. What was he thinking? That someone would come to him to help him escape from this black hold? He shook his head against the pain of his own certainty that there was no help left for him. All of the company from Culhaven were gone-lost, dead, or scattered. Even Slanter. He wiped the tears away roughly, fighting back against his despair. It did not matter that no one would come, he swore silently. He would never give the Mwellret what it wanted. And he would somehow find a way to escape.

      Once again, as he had done each time he had come awake after sleeping, he worked at the pins and fastenings of the chains that bound him, trying to weaken them enough to break free. For long moments, he twisted and turned the iron, peering hopefully at their joinings through the dark. But in the end he gave it up as he always gave it up, for it was useless to pit flesh and blood against smith-forged iron. Only the jailer's key could set him free again.

      Free. He spoke the word within the silence of his mind. He must find a way to get free. He must.

      He thought then of Brin; thinking of her, he found himself wondering at what he had seen when last he had looked within the mirror of the vision crystal. How strange and sad that brief glimpse had been-his sister sitting alone before a campfire, her face twisted in strain and despair as she stared out across the forestland. What had happened to Brin to cause her such unhappiness?

      Self-consciously, his hand strayed to the small bulk of the crystal where it lay hidden beneath his tunic. Stythys had not found it yet, nor the bag of Silver Dust, and Jair had been careful to keep both hidden within his clothing whenever the Mwellret was about. The creature came to him all too frequently, slipping soundlessly from the dark when the Valeman least expected it, stealing from the shadows like some loathsome wraith to wheedle and cajole, to promise, and to threaten. Give to me what I ask and you will be set free...Tell me what I want to know!

      Jair's face hardened and set. Help that monster? Not in this world, he wouldn't!

      Swiftly, he lifted the silver chain and its stone from within his tunic and held it lovingly within the cupped palms of his hands. It was the sole tie he had with the world beyond this cell, his only means of discovering what Brin was about. He stared at the crystal, and his mind was decided. He would use it one time more. He would have to be careful, he knew. But just a moment was all that was required. He would call up the image and then banish it quickly. The monster would never be the wiser.

      He had to know what had become of Brin.

      With the crystal cupped in his hands, he began to sing. Soft and low, his voice called forth the dormant power of the stone, reaching into its murky depths. The light slowly rose from within and spread outward-a flood of whiteness that brightened the terrible gloom and brought an unexpected smile to his face.

      Brin! he cried softly.

      The image came to life-his sister's face suspended within the light before him. He sang, steady and slow, and the image sharpened. She stood before a lake now. The sadness on her face had turned to shock. Stiff and unmoving, she stared out across the gray and misted waters at a cloaked and hooded apparition that hung upon the air. Slowly the image turned as he sang, swinging about to where he could see the face of the apparition.

      The wishsong wavered and broke as the face drew near.

      The face was Brin's!

      Then a furtive rustling sound from across the darkened cell turned Jair's stomach to ice. Instantly, he went still and the strange vision faded. Jair's hands closed about the vision crystal, desperately drawing it down within his tattered clothing, knowing even then that it was already too late.

      "Ssee, little friend, you have found a way to help me," a cold, familiar reptilian voice hissed.

      And the cloaked form of the Mwellret Stythys advanced through the open cell door.

 

      On the shore's edge at the lake of the Grimpond, there was a long, endless moment of silence, broken only by the soft lapping of the gray waters as they washed against the rocks. The shade and the Valegirl faced each other in the gloom of mist and shadow like voiceless ghosts called forth from another world and time.

      "Look upon me!" the shade commanded.

      Brin kept her gaze steady. The face the Grimpond wore was her own, drawn, haggard, and ravaged with grief, and where her own dark eyes would have been, twin slits of crimson light burned like coals. Her smile taunted her from the shade's lips, teasing with insidious purpose, the laughter low and evil.

      "Do you know me?" came the whisper. "Speak my name."

      Brin swallowed against the tightness in her throat. "You are the Grimpond."

      The laughter swelled. "I am you, Brin of the Vale people, Brin of the houses of Ohmsford and Shannara. I am you! I am the telling of your life, and in my words you shall find your destiny. Seek, then, what you will."

      The hissing of the Grimpond's voice died into a sudden roiling of the waters over which it hung suspended. A fine, thin spray exploded geyserlike into the misted air and showered down upon the Valegirl. It was as cold as death's forbidden touch.

      The Grimpond's crimson eyes narrowed. "Would you know, child of the light, of the darkness that is the Ildatch?"

      Wordlessly, Brin nodded. The Grimpond laughed mirthlessly and glided closer. "All that is and all that was of the dark magic traces to the book, bound by threads that close you and yours tight about. Wars of Races, wars of man-faerie demons, all one hand. Like rhymes of the voice, all are one. The humankind come to the dark magic, seeking power that they cannot hope to make theirs-seeking then death. They creep to the hiding place of the book, drawn by the lure, by the need. One time to the face of death, one time to the pit of night. Each time they find what they seek and are lost to it, changed from moral self to spirit. Bearers and Wraiths, all are one. And the evil is one with them."

      The voice faded. Brin's mind raced, thinking through the meaning of what she had been told. One time to the face of death...Skull Mountain. Past and present were one, Skull Bearer and Mord Wraith-that was the Grimpond's meaning. They were born of the same evil. And somehow, in some way, all of it was bound together in a single source.

      "The dark magic made them all," she said quickly. "Warlock Lord and Skull Bearers in the time of my great-grandfather; Mord Wraiths now. That is your meaning, isn't it?"

      "Is it?" the voice hissed softly, teasingly. "One of one? Where lies the Warlock Lord now, Valegirl? Who now gives voice to the magic and sends the Mord Wraiths forth?"

      Brin stared at the apparition wordlessly. Was it saying that the Warlock Lord had come back again? But no, that was impossible...

      "That voice is dark when it speaks to humankind," the Grimpond intoned in a singsong hiss. "That voice is born of the magic, born of the lore. It is found in different ways-by some in printed word, by some...in song!"

      Brin went cold. "I am not of their kind!" she snapped. "I do not use the dark magic!"

      The Grimpond laughed. "Nor does any, Valegirl. The magic uses them. There is the key of all that you seek. There is all you need know."

      Brin struggled to understand. "Speak more," she urged.

      "More? More of what?" The shade's misted form shimmered darkly. "Would you have me tell you of the eyes-eyes that follow you, eyes that seek you out at every turn?" The Valegirl stiffened. "Love sees you in those eyes when they are the eyes that command the crystal. But dark intent sees you likewise when the eyes are sightless and born of your own birthright. Do you see? Are your own eyes open? Not so the eyes of the Druid when he lived, dark shadow of his time. They were closed to the greatest part of the truth, closed to what was apparent, had he thought it through. He did not see the truth, poor Allanon. He saw only the Warlock Lord come again; he saw only what was as what is-not as what could be. Deceived, poor Allanon. Even in death, he walked where the dark magic willed that he should-and when he came to his end, he was seen a fool."

      Brin's mind spun. "The walkers-they knew he was coming, didn't they? They knew he could come into the Wolfsktaag. That was why the Jachyra was there."

      Laughter swelled and echoed in the silence of the mist. "Truth wins out! But once only, perhaps. Trust not what the Grimpond says. Shall I speak more? Shall I tell you of your journey to the Maelmord with the clown Prince of Leah and his lost magic? Oh, so desperate he is to have that magic, so much in need of what will destroy him. You suspect it will destroy him, don't you, Valegirl? Let him have it, then, so that he might have his wish and become one with all who shared that wish before and passed into death. His is the strong arm that leads you to a similar fate. Ah, shall I tell you of how you, too, shall come to die?"

      Brin's dusky face tightened. "Tell me what you will, shade. But I will listen only to the truth."

      "So? Am I to judge what is true and what is not, where we speak of what is yet to be?" The Grimpond's voice was low and taunting. "The book of your life lies open before me, though there are pages yet to write. What shall be written shall be written by you, not by words that I may speak. You are the last of three, each to live in the shadow of the others, each to seek to be free of that shadow, each to grow apart therefrom and then to reach back to the ones who went before. Yet your reach is darkest on the land."

      Brin hesitated uncertainly. Shea Ohmsford must be the first, her father the second, she the third. Each had sought to be free of the legacy of the Elven house of Shannara from which all were descended. But what did that last part mean?

      "Ah, your death awaits you in the land of the walkers," the Grimpond hissed softly. "Within the pit of dark, within the breast of the magic you seek to destroy, there shall you find your death. It is foreordained, Valegirl, for you carry its seeds within your own body."

      The Valegirl's hand came up impatiently. "Then tell me how to reach it, Grimpond. Give me a way into the Maelmord that will shield me from the eyes of the walkers. Let me go to my death quickly, if you see it so."

      The Grimpond laughed darkly. "Clever girl, you would seek to have me tell you forthright what you have truly come here to discover. I know what brings you hence, child of the Elfkind. You can hide nothing from me, for I have lived since all that was and will live for all that is to be. It is my choice to do so, to stay within this old world and not to be at peace in another. I have made playthings of those of flesh and blood who are my sole companions now, and none have ever broken past the guard I place upon myself. Would you know the truth of what you ask, Valegirl? Beg it from me, then."

      Anger welled up within her at the Grimpond's boastful words, and she stepped to the very edge of the gray lake waters. Spray hissed warningly from out of the mist, but she ignored it.

      "I was warned that you would play this game with me," she said, her own voice dangerous now. "I have come far and have endured much grief. I have no wish to be teased now by you. Do not press me, shade. Speak only the truth. How am I to reach the pit of the Maelmord without the walkers seeing where I come?"

      The Grimpond's eyes narrowed sharply, flickering deep red as the silence between the two lengthened. "Find your own way, Brin of the Vale people," the Grimpond hissed.

      Rage exploded inside Brin, but by sheer force of will she held it in check. Wordlessly, she nodded in acquiescence, then stepped back and seated herself upon the shore, her cloak pulled close about her.

      "You wait to no purpose," the shade sneered.

      But Brin did not move. She composed herself carefully, breathing in the damp air of the lake and drawing her thoughts close about her. The Grimpond stayed suspended above the waters of the lake, unmoving, its eyes turned toward her. Brin let those eyes draw her close. A serene look came over her dusky face, and the long black hair fanned back. It does not yet see what I will do! She smiled inwardly, and the thought was gone an instant after it had come.

      Then softly, she began to sing. The wishsong rose into the midday with sweet and gentle words from the lips of the girl seated upon the lakeshore, to fill the air about her. Quickly, it reached out and bound the misted form of the Grimpond, weaving and twisting with its magic. So startled was the shade that it did not stir from its resting spot, but hung suspended within the web of the magic as it slowly drew tighter. Then, for the barest second, the Grimpond seemed to sense what was happening to it. Beneath its gathered robes, the lake waters boiled and hissed. But the wishsong swiftly swept all about the imprisoned form, wrapping it away as if it had become a chrysalis.

      Now the Valegirl's voice came quicker and with more certain intent. The shrouding of the first song, the gentle, womblike wrapping that had bound the Grimpond without his seeing, was gone. A prisoner now, as surely as the fly caught within the spider's web, the shade was to be dealt with as its captor chose. Yet the Valegirl used neither force of arms nor strength of mind against this being, for she had seen that such would be useless. Memories were the weapons she called to her aid now-memories of what had once been, of what had been lost and could never be regained. All came back once more within the wishsong's music. There was the touch of a human hand, warm and kind. There was the smell and taste of sweetness and light and the sensation of love and joy, of life and death. There were all these and others, lost to the Grimpond in its present form, barely remembered from the life long since gone.

      With a cry of anguish, the Grimpond sought to evade the old sensations, shimmering and roiling in a cloud of mist. Yet it could not escape the magic of the song; slowly, the sensations caught it up and held it, and it was given over to their memories. Brin could feel the shade's emotions come again to life, and within the memories exhumed, the Grimpond's tears flowed. She sang steadily. When the shade was hers completely, she hardened herself against her own pain and drew back what she had given.

      "No!" the apparition howled in dismay. "Give them back, Valegirl! Give them back to me!"

      "Tell me what I would know," she sang, the threads of the questions weaving through her song. "Tell me!"

      With frightening suddenness, the Grimpond's words came pouring out as if released with the anguish that tore its forgotten soul. "Graymark bridges the Maelmord where it lies within the Ravenshorn-Graymark, the castle of the Wraiths. There lies the way that is sought, a maze of sewers that runs from its halls and chambers deep beneath the rock on which it stands, to empty into a basin far below. Enter through the sewers; and the eyes of the walkers will not see!"

      "The Sword of Leah," Brin pressed harshly. "Where can it be found? Tell me!"

      Anguish wrenched the Grimpond through and through as she touched him in taunting strokes with the feel of what had been lost. "Spider Gnomes!" the shade cried desperately. "The blade lies within their camp, snatched from the waters of the Chard Rush, gathered in by the nets and snares they keep fastened to its banks!"

      Abruptly, Brin drew back the magic of the wishsong, filled with the memories and the sensations of the old life. She drew it clear in a swift, painless rush, freeing the imprisoned shade from the trappings that had bound it. The echoes of the song lingered in the stillness that hung across the empty lake, dying into a single haunting note that rang in the midday air. It was a note of forgetfulness-a sweet, ghostly cry that left the Grimpond as it had been.

      There was a long, terrible silence then. Slowly Brin rose to her feet and stared full into the face that was the mirror of her own. Something deep within her howled in dismay as she saw the look that came upon that face. It was as if she had done this to herself!

      And the Grimpond realized now what had been done. "You have tricked from me the truth, dark child!" the shade wailed bitterly. "I sense that you have done so. Ah, black you are! Black!"

      The shade's voice broke, and the gray waters boiled and steamed. Brin stood frozen at the edge of the lake, afraid to turn away or to speak. Inside, she was empty and cold.

      Then the Grimpond lifted its robed arm. "One last game then, Valegirl-something back from me to you! Let this be my gift! Look into the mist, here beside me where it forms-look closely now! See you this!"

      Brin knew then that she should flee, but somehow she could not. The mist seemed to gather before her, swirling and spreading in a sheet of gray that lightened and smoothed. A slow, shimmering motion rippled across its surface like still water disturbed, and an image formed-a figure, crouched low within a darkened cell, his movements furtive...

 

      Jair snatched back the vision crystal, thrusting it deep within his tunic, praying that the shadows and the gloom hid from the Mwellret what it was that he did. Perhaps he had been quick enough. Perhaps...

      "Ssaw the magicss, Elfling," the harsh voice rasped, dashing his hopes. "Ssenssed all along that the magicss were yourss. Sshare them with me, little friend. Sshow what you have."

      Jair shook his head slowly, fear mirrored in his blue eyes. "Stay away from me Stythys. Stay back from me."

      The Mwellret laughed-a low, guttural laugh that echoed in the emptiness of the cell and the long corridors beyond. The creature swelled suddenly within the dark robes, rising up against the dim light like a monstrous shadow.

      "Threatenss me, ssmall one? Crussh you like a tiny egg if you usse the magicss on me. Sstay quiet now, little friend. Look into my eyess. Ssee the lightss."

      Lidded, scaled eyes glimmered, cold and compelling. Jair forced his own eyes down, knowing that he could not look, that if he did so he would belong once again to the creature. But it was so hard not to look. He wanted to see into those eyes; he wanted to be drawn into them and the peace and serenity that waited there.

      "Ssee, Elfling," the monster hissed.

      Jair's hand closed about the small bulk of the vision crystal until he could feel the edges cutting into his palm. Concentrate on the pain, he thought frantically. Don't look. Don't look!

      Then the Mwellret hissed angrily and one hand lifted. "Give to me the magicss! Give them to me!"

      Voiceless, Jair Ohmsford shrank back from him...

 

      The Grimpond's robed arm came down sharply and the screen of mist dissolved and was gone. Brin lurched forward desperately, stepping off the rock-strewn shoreline into the gray waters of the lake. Jair! That had been Jair in the images! What was it that had happened to him?

      "Did you enjoy that game, Brin of the Vale people?" whispered the avatar harshly, the waters roiling once again beneath where it hung. "Did you see what has happened to your precious brother whom you thought safe within the Vale? Did you see?"

      Brin fought back against the rage that welled up within her. "Lies, Grimpond. You tell only lies this time."

      The shade chuckled softly. "Lies? Think what you wish, Valegirl. A game is only a game, after all. A diversion from the truth. Or is it truth revealed?" Robed arms drew close, the mist swirling. "Dark you are, Brin of Shannara, of Ohmsford, of history spawned. Dark as the magic with which you play. Go from me, now. Take what you have learned of the clown prince's magic and the passage to your death. Find what you seek and become what you surely will! Get you gone from me!"

      The Grimpond began to fade back into the gray mist that rolled behind it over the lake's murky waters. Brin stood transfixed upon the shoreline, wanting to hold the shade back, but knowing that this time she could not.

      Suddenly the shade paused in its retreat, red eyes narrowing into slits within the mist robes. Brin's own face leered back at her, a twisted mask of evil. "See me as you are, Brin of the Vale people. Savior and destroyer, mirror of life and death. The magic uses all, dark child-even you!"

      Then the Grimpond disappeared back into the wall of the mist, its laughter soft and wicked in the deep silence. Soundlessly, the grayness closed about it and it was gone.

      Brin stared after it a moment, lost in a gathering of fears, doubts, and whispered warnings. Then slowly she turned and walked back to the trees.

 

 

      33

Dark and forbidding, the Mwellret Stythys advanced through the gloom of the little cell, and Jair backed slowly away.

      "Give to me the magicss," the monster hissed, and the crooked fingers beckoned. "Releasse them, Elfling."

      The Valeman retreated further into the shadows, the chains that bound his wrists and ankles dragging. Then the cell wall was pressing into his back and there was nowhere left to go.

      I cannot even run from him! he thought desperately.

      A soft scraping of leather boots on stone sounded from the cell entry and the Gnome jailer appeared from the corridor beyond. Head lowered into shadow, the hooded form passed silently through the open doorway into the room. Stythys turned at the other's approach, cold eyes glittering with displeasure.

      "Ssent not for little peopless," the Mwellret muttered darkly, and the scaled hands motioned the Gnome away.

      But the jailer paid no heed. Mute and unresponsive, he shuffled past the lizard creature as if he had not seen him and came directly toward Jair. Head still lowered, hands tucked deep into the folds of the ragged cloak, the Gnome slipped wraithlike through the dark. Jair watched his approach with mingled surprise and uncertainty. As the little man came closer, the Valeman shrank back in repulsion against the stone of the cell wall, the iron of his chains clanking as he raised his hands defensively.

      "Sstand away, little peopless!" Stythys rasped, angry now, and his scaled body drew itself up menacingly.

      But the Gnome jailer had already reached Jair, a hunched and voiceless thing as he stood before the Valeman. Slowly the cowled head lifted.

      Jair's eyes went wide. The Gnome in the ragged cloak and hood was not the jailer!

      "Need a little help, boy?" Slanter whispered.

      Then a black-clad form leaped from the shadowed corridor without, and the slender blade of a long sword pressed up against the throat of an astonished Stythys, forcing him back against the cell wall.

      "Not a sound from you," Garet Jax warned. "Not a twitch. Either, and you'll be dead before you finish!"

      "Garet, you're alive!" Jair exclaimed in disbelief.

      "Alive and well," the other replied, but the hard gray eyes never moved from the Mwellret. "Hurry and set the Valeman free, Gnome."

      "Just be patient a moment!" Slanter had produced a ring of iron keys from beneath the cloak and was trying each key in turn in the shackles that bound the Valeman. "Confounded things don't fit the lock...ah-ha-this one!"

      The locks on the wrist and ankle-bindings clicked sharply and the chains fell away. "Slanter," Jair gripped the Gnome's arm'as Slanter stripped away the jailer's ragged cloak and tossed it aside. "How on earth did you ever manage to find me?"

      "No real trick to that, boy!" the Gnome snorted, rubbing at the other's bruised wrists to restore the circulation. "I told you I was the best tracker you'd ever met! Weather didn't help much, of course-washed out half the signs, turned the whole of the forestland to muck. But we picked up the lizard's tracks right outside the tunnels and knew he'd bring you here, whatever his intentions. Cells in Dun Fee Aran are always for sale to anyone with the right price and no questions asked. People in them for sale the same way. Lock you away until you're bones, unless..."

      "Talk about it later, Gnome," Garet Jax cut him short. "You." He jabbed sharply at the Mwellret. "You walk ahead-keep everyone away from us. No one is to stop us; no one is to question us. If they do..."

      "Leavess me here, little peopless!" the creature hissed.

      "Yes, leave him," Slanter agreed, his face wrinkling in distaste. "You can't trust the lizards."

      But Garet Jax shook his head. "He goes. Foraker thinks we can use him."

      Jair started. "Foraker is here, too!"

      But Slanter was already propelling him toward the cell door, spitting in open disdain at the Mwellret as he walked past. "He'll do us no good, Weapons Master," he insisted. "Remember, I warned you."

      They were in the hallway beyond then, crouched in the shadows and the silence, Slanter at the Valeman's elbow as Garet Jax brought Stythys through the door. The Weapons Master paused for a moment, listened, then shoved Stythys before him as they started back down the darkened corridor. A torch burned in 'a wall rack ahead of them; when they reached it, Slanter snatched the brand away and assumed the lead.

      "Black pit, this place!" he growled softly, picking his way through the gloom.

      "Slanter!" Jair whispered urgently. "Is Elb Foraker here, too?"

      The Gnome glanced at him briefly and nodded. "The Dwarf, the Elf and the Borderman as well. Said we'd started this journey together and that's how we'd finish it." He shook his head ruefully. "Guess we're all mad."

      They slipped back through the labyrinth passageways of the prisons, the Gnome and the Valeman leading and the Weapons Master a step behind with his sword pressed close against the back of the Mwellret. They hastened through blackness, silence, and the stench of death and rot, passing the closed and rusted doors of the prison cells and working their way back into the light of day. Gradually, the gloom began to recede as slivers of daylight, gray and hazy, brightened the passages ahead. The sound of rain reached their ears, and a small, sweet breath of clean air brushed past them.

      Then once again the massive, ironbound doors of the building entrance appeared before them, closed and barred. Wind and rain blew against them in sharp gusts, drumming against the wood. Slanter tossed aside the torch and hastened ahead to peer through the watch slot for what waited without. Jair joined him, gratefully breathing in the fresh air that slipped through.

      "I never thought to see you again," he whispered to the Gnome. "Not any of you."

      Slanter kept his eyes on the slot. "You have the luck, all right."

      "I thought no one was left to come for me. I thought you dead."

      "Hardly," the Gnome growled. "After I lost you in the tunnels and couldn't figure out what had become of you, I went on through to the cliffs north above Capaal. Tunnel ended there. I knew if the others were alive, they'd come through just as I had, because that was what the Weapons Master's plans had called for. So I waited. Sure enough, they found each other, then found me. And then we came after you."

      Jair stared at the Gnome. "Slanter, you could have left me-left them too. No one would have known. You were free."

      The Gnome shrugged, discomfort reflecting in his blocky face. "Was I?" He shook his head disdainfully. "Never stopped to think about it."

      Garet Jax had reached them now, prodding Stythys before him. "Still raining?" he asked Slanter.

      The Gnome nodded. "Still raining."

      The Weapons Master sheathed the slender sword in one fluid motion and a long knife appeared in its place. He pushed Stythys up against the corridor wall, his lean face hard. A head taller than Garet Jax when first surprised by him in Jair's cell, Stythys had shrunk down again, coiled like a snake within his robes. Green eyes glittered evilly at the Southlander, cold and unblinking.

      "Leavess me, little peopless," he whined once more.

      Garet Jax shook his head. "Once outside, walk close to me, Mwellret. Don't try to move away. Don't play games. Cloaked and hooded, we shouldn't be recognized. The rain will keep most away, but if anyone comes close, you turn them. Remember, it wouldn't take much to persuade me to cut your throat."

      He said it softly, almost gently, and there was a chilling silence. The Mwellret's eyes narrowed into slits.

      "Havess the magicss!" he hissed angrily. "Needss nothing from me! Leavess me!"

      Garret Jax brought the point of the long knife tight against the other's scaled throat. "You go."

      Cloaks wrapped close about them, they pulled open the heavy wooden doors of the darkened prison and stepped out into the light. Rain fell in blinding sheets from gray, clouded skies, blown against the fortress walls by the wind. Heads bent against its force, the four started across the muddied yard toward the battlements that lay immediately north. Scattered knots of Gnome Hunters passed them by without slowing, anxious only to get in out of the weather. On the watchtowers, sentries huddled in the shelter of stonework nooks and bays, miserable with the cold and damp. No one cared anything about the little party that crossed below. No one even gave them a second glance.

      Slanter took the lead as the north battlements drew near, guiding them past small lakes of surface water and mudholes to where a pair of iron-grated doors closed away a small court. They pushed through the doors and crossed quickly to a covered entry that led into a squat stone-and-timber watchtower. Wordlessly, the Gnome unlatched the shadowed wooden door and led the way inside.

      An anteway lay within, brightened by the light of torches jammed into holders on either side of the door. Brushing the water from their cloaks, they paused momentarily while Slanter moved to the edge of a darkened corridor leading left beneath the battlement. After peering into the gloom, the Gnome beckoned for them to follow. Garet Jax snatched one of the torches from its bracket, handed it to Jair, and motioned him after Slanter.

      A narrow hall opened before them, lined with doors that stretched into the darkness ahead.

      "Storerooms," Slanter informed Jair, winking.

      They stepped into the hall. Slanter slipped cautiously ahead; at the third door, he stopped and knocked softly.

      "It's us," he whispered into the latch.

      The latch released with a snap, the door swung wide, and Elb Foraker, Helt, and Edain Elessedil appeared. Smiles creasing their battered faces, they surrounded Jair and gripped his hand warmly.

      "Are you all right, Jair?" the Elven Prince asked at once, his own face bruised and cut so badly that the Valeman was immediately afraid for him. The Elf saw his concern and dismissed it with a shrug. "Just a few scratches. I found an escape passage, but it opened on a thorn bush. Nothing that won't quickly heal. But you-are you truly all right?"

      "I'm fine now, Edain." Jair hugged him impulsively.

      Helt and Foraker were battered about the face and hands as well, the result Jair supposed of having the greater part of that battlement wall fall on them. "I can't believe that you're all here!" The Valeman swallowed hard against the knot forming in his throat.

      "Couldn't very well leave you behind, now could we, Jair?" The giant Borderman gripped his arm warmly with one great hand. "Yours is the magic that we need to heal the Silver River."

      Jair grinned happily, and Foraker stepped close, eyes fixing on the Mwellret. "I see that you were able to bring him."

      Garet Jax nodded without comment. While the others had been greeting Jair anew, he had stayed with Stythys, the long knife pointed at the Mwellret's throat.

      "Little peopless be ssorry they takess me!" the creature hissed venomously. "Findss a way to make them ssorry!"

      Slanter spit distastefully into the earth. Foraker pointed at the Mwellret. "You alone are responsible for what happens to you now, Stythys. Had you not taken the Valeman, you would have been left alone. Since you did take him, you'll have to answer for it. You're going to see us safely out of this place, then safely through the forests north and into the Ravenshorn. Steer us wrong just once, and I'll let Slanter do to you what he'd like to have done in the first place." He glanced at the Gnome. "And remember, Stythys, he knows the way as well, so think carefully before you attempt any deception."

      "Let's be gone from here!" Slanter growled anxiously.

      With the Gnome leading, the little band passed down the narrow hall through a series of still smaller corridors and arrived at the foot of a winding stone stairway. Slanter put a finger to his lips in warning. In single file, they began to climb. From somewhere above, faint and distant yet, the guttural sound of Gnome voices reached their ears. A small wooden door stood closed at the top of the stairs. Slanter paused momentarily, listened, then cracked the door and peered out. Satisfied, he beckoned them through.

      They stood in a massive armory, its floor piled with stacks of weapons, armor, and provisions. Gray light filtered down through high, barred windows. The chamber was empty, and Slanter led the way hurriedly toward a door set into the far wall.

      He was almost there when the door abruptly swung open from the opposite side, and he found himself face to face with an entire squad of Gnome Hunters.

      The Gnomes hesitated, seeing first Slanter, then the odd gathering of faces that followed after him. It was when they caught sight of Foraker that their hands flew to their weapons.

      "No luck this time, boy!" Slanter howled, flinging himself protectively in front of Jair.

      The Gnome Hunters came at them in a rush, but already the dark figure of Garet Jax was moving, the slender sword darting. Down went the foremost of the attackers, and then Foraker was beside the Weapons Master, his two-edged axe thrusting back the rest. Behind them, Stythys turned and broke for the door through which they had come, but Helt was on him like a cat, bearing him to the floor. They skidded into a stack of pikes, and the pikes tumbled down about them in a clash of wood and iron.

      The Gnome Hunters stood and fought before the open door a moment longer as Garet Jax and Foraker pressed in on them. Then, with a howl of anger, they broke and fled. The Weapons Master and the Dwarf gave chase as far as the doorway; but seeing that pursuit was pointless, they turned quickly to help the struggling Helt. Together, they hauled Stythys back to his feet, the Mwellret hissing venomously, his scaled body swelling until he rose above even the giant Borderman. Holding the lizard firm, they dragged him to where Slanter and Jair stood peering down the corridor without.

      From both ends of the corridor, cries of alarm answered those of the fleeing Gnome Hunters.

      "Which way do we run?" Garet Jax snapped at Slanter.

      Wordlessly, the Gnome turned right, away from the fleeing Hunters, moving down the corridor at a quick trot and motioning the others to follow. They came after him in a knot, Stythys urged on by the long knife Garet Jax held against his ribs.

      "Sstupid little peopless!" the Mwellret rasped in fury. "Diess here in the prissonss!"

      The hall divided before them. To the left, a gathering of Gnomes caught sight of them and charged with weapons drawn. Slanter wheeled and took the little company right. Ahead, a Gnome Hunter darted from a doorway, but Foraker bowled him over without slowing, banging the fellow's helmeted head against the stone block walls with jarring force. Cries of pursuit rose up all about.

      "Slanter!" Jair cried suddenly in warning.

      Too late. The Gnome had stumbled into the midst of a swarm of armed Hunters that had burst unexpectedly from an adjoining hall. He went down in a tangle of arms and legs, crying out. Thrusting Stythys at Helt, Garet Jax went to his aid, Foraker and Edain Elessedil a step behind. Weapons glittered sharply in the gray half-light and cries of pain and anger filled the hall. The rescuers swept into the Gnomes, thrusting them back from the fallen Slanter. Garet Jax was like a cat at hunt, fluid and swift, as he parried and cut with the slender sword. The Gnomes gave way. Aided by Edain Elessedil, Slanter struggled to his feet once more.

      "Slanter! Get us out of here!" Elb Foraker roared, the great, two-edged axe before him.

      "Ahead!" Slanter coughed and staggered forward.

      Surging through the Gnomes that still barred their way, the little company raced down the corridor, dragging the reluctant Stythys with them. Gnome Hunters sprang at them from everywhere, but they threw back the attackers with ferocious determination. Slanter went down again, tripped by the haft of a short spear thrust before him. Instantly Foraker was there, broadax hammering at the attacker and one hand dragging Slanter back up. The cries from behind them became a solid roar as hundreds of Gnomes flooded the hallway about the armory door and gave chase.

      Then they were in the clear for a moment, bounding down a flight of stairs, cutting back beneath the flooring to a passageway below. A broad rotunda opened before them, its windows and doors neatly spaced about, closed and shuttered against the weather. Without slowing, Slanter wrenched open the door closest and led the little company back out into the rain.

      They were in another court, walled and gated. The rain blew wildly in their faces, and thunder rolled across the High Bens Slowing his pace, Slanter led the way across the court to the gates, pushed them open, and stepped through. An outside stairway circled downward to a line of battlements and watchtowers. Beyond, the dark shadow of the forest pressed close about the walls.

      Boldly, Slanter led the company down the stairs and onto the battlements. Gnome Hunters clustered about the watchtowers now, alerted that something had happened within the fortress.

      Slanter ignored them. Head lowered, cloak wrapped close, he motioned the others into a passageway beneath the battlements. Within the concealment of their shadow, he gathered the company about him.

      "We're going right through the gates," he announced, his breath ragged. "No one talks but me. Keep your hoods up and your heads down. Whatever happens, don't stop. Quick, now!"

      There was no argument, not even from Garet Jax. Cloaks drawn close and hoods in place, the company slipped from the shadows once more. With Slanter leading, they followed the battlement walls beneath the watchtower to a pair of iron-barred, open gates. A cluster of Gnome Hunters stood talking before them, heads bent against the weather, sharing a flask of ale. A head or two lifted at their approach, and Slanter waved, calling out something in the Gnome tongue that Jair could not understand. One of the Hunters drew away from his fellows and stepped out to meet them.

      "Keep moving," Slanter whispered over his shoulder.

      A few scattered shouts from behind them had reached the ears of the Gnome Hunters. Startled, they looked back into the fortress to discover what had happened.

      The little company marched past them without slowing. Instinctively, Jair tried to shrink down within his cloak, tensing so badly he stumbled and almost went down before Elb Foraker caught him. Slanter stepped apart from the others as they came past the watch, blocking away the eyes of the Gnome who had thought to detain them. He spoke angrily with the fellow, and Jair caught the word Mwellret in the conversation. They were clear of the Hunters now, all save Slanter, passing beneath the battlements and through the open gates. No one stopped them. As they hurried from Dun Fee Aran into the darkness of the trees, Jair slowed and looked back anxiously. Slanter still stood within the arch, arguing with the watch.

      "Keep your head down!" Foraker urged, pushing him ahead.

      He went into the rain-soaked forest, following reluctantly after the others, and the walls and towers of the fortress disappeared behind him. They pressed on a few, minutes longer, weaving their way through the scrub and trees, Elb Foraker in the lead. Then they stopped, gathering beneath a monstrous oak, its leaves fallen and matted into the earth about it in a carpet of muddied yellow. Garet Jax backed Stythys against the gnarled trunk and held him there. They waited in silence.

      The minutes slipped by. Slanter did not appear. Crouched down at the edge of the little clearing that encircled the old oak, Jair peered helplessly into the rain. The others spoke in hushed tones behind him. The rain fell steadily, spattering in noisy cadence on the earth and forest trees. Still Slanter did not appear. Jair's mouth tightened with determination. If he did not come in the next five minutes, the Valeman was going back for him. He would not leave the Gnome-not after what Slanter had done for him.

      Five minutes passed, and still Slanter did not appear. Jair rose and looked questioningly at the others, a cluster of cloaked and hooded figures in the dark and the rain.

      "I'm going back," he told them. Then a rustling noise brought him about and Slanter emerged from the trees.

      "Took a bit more talking than I thought it would," the Gnome announced. "They'll be after us quick enough." Then he saw the look of relief on Jair's face and stopped. "Thinking of going somewhere, boy?" he guessed tightly.

      "Well, I...no, I guess not now..." Jair stuttered.

      A look of amusement spread over the Gnome's rough face. "No? Still planning on finding your sister, aren't you?" Jair nodded. "Good. Then you are going somewhere after all. You're going north with the rest of us. Get moving."

      Motioning to the others, he turned into the trees. "We'll ford the river six miles upstream to throw off any pursuit that lasts that long. River's deep there, but I guess we can't get much wetter than we are."

      Jair permitted himself a brief smile, then followed after the others. The peaks of the High Bens rose before them, misted and gray through the trees. Beyond, still far to the north and hidden from view, the mountains of the Ravenshorn waited. It might yet be a long way to Graymark, the Valeman thought, breathing in the cool autumn air and the smell of the rain, but for the first time since Capaal he felt certain that they were going to get there.

 

 

      34

Brin spoke little on the journey back from the Grimpond to Hearthstone. She needed to sort through and decipher the meaning of all that the shade had told to her, for she knew that her confusion would only grow greater with the passage of time. Pressed by her companions to tell all that the Grimpond had told to her, she revealed only that the missing Sword of Leah was in the hands of the Spider Gnomes and that the way to enter the Maelmord without being seen was through Graymark's sewers. After saying that much, she begged them to forbear from any further questioning until they had returned to the valley, then gave herself over to the task of reconsidering all that she had been told.

      The strange image of Jair in that darkened room with the cloaked form advancing so menacingly toward him was foremost in her mind as she began the task of sorting through the puzzle given her. In spite and anger, the Grimpond had conjured up that image, and she could not believe that there was any truth in what she had been shown. The cloaked form was neither Gnome nor Mord Wraith, and those were the enemies that sought the Ohmsfords. It angered her that she had stayed to watch the image play itself out before her, teasing her as the Grimpond had intended that it should. Had she any sense, she would have turned away at once and not let herself be taunted. Jair was safe in the Vale with her parents and their friends. The Grimpond's image was but a loathsome lie.

      And yet she could not be entirely certain.

      Unable to do anything further with that concern, she pushed it aside and turned her thoughts to the other mysteries that the Grimpond had given her. There were many. Past and present were joined in some way by the dark magic, the shade had hinted. The power that the Warlock Lord had wielded in the time of Shea Ohmsford was the power wielded in her own time by the Mord Wraiths. But there was more to the Grimpond's meaning. There was mention of some tie between the Wars of the Races and the more recent war her father and the Westland Elves had fought against the Demons of the faerie world. There was that insidious suggestion that while the Warlock Lord had been destroyed by the magic of the Sword of Shannara, he was not really gone. "Who now gives voice to the magic and sends the Mord Wraiths forth?" the Grimpond had asked. Worst of all was the shade's sly insistence that Allanon-who through all his years of service to the Four Lands and her people had always foreseen everything-had this time been deceived. Thinking that he saw the truth, he had let his eyes be closed. What was it the Grimpond had said? That Allanon saw only the Warlock Lord come again-that he saw only what was past.

      What do you see? the shade had whispered. Are your eyes open?

      Frustration welled up within her, but she brought it quickly under control. Frustration would only serve to blind her further, and she needed to keep her vision clear, if she was even to begin to comprehend the Grimpond's words. Suppose, she reasoned, that Allanon had indeed been deceived-an assumption that was difficult for her to accept, but one that she must accept if she were to puzzle through what she had been told. In what way could that deception have been worked? It was evident enough that the Druid had been deceived in his belief that the Wraiths would not anticipate their coming into the Eastland through the Wolfsktaag or that the Wraiths could not follow them after they left the Vale. Were these deceptions only bits and pieces of some greater deceit?

      Are your own eyes open? Do you see?

      The words whispered again in her mind, a warning that she did not understand. Was the deception of Allanon in some way her own? She shook her head against her confusion. Reason it through, she told herself. She must assume that Allanon had been deceived somehow in his analysis of the danger that confronted them in the Maelmord. Perhaps the power of the Mord Wraiths was greater than he had supposed. Perhaps some part of the Warlock Lord had survived the Master's destruction. Perhaps the Druid had underestimated the strength of their enemies or overestimated their own strength.

      She thought then of what the Grimpond had said about her. Dark child, he had called her, doomed to die in the Maelmord, the bearer of the seeds of her own destruction. Surely that destruction would come from the-magic of the wishsong-an inadequate and erratic defense against the dark magic of the walkers. The Mord Wraiths were victims of their magic. But so, too, was she, the Grimpond had said. And when she had heatedly replied that she was not like them, that she did not use the dark magic, the shade had laughed and told her that none used the magic-that the magic used them.

      "There is the key to what you seek," he had said.

      That was another puzzle. It was certainly true that the magic used her as much as she used it. She remembered her anger against the men from west of Spanning Ridge at the Rooker Line Trading Center and how Allanon had shown her what the magic could do to those trees so closely intertwined. Savior and destroyer-she would be both, the shade of Bremen had warned. And now the Grimpond had warned her, too.

      Cogline whispered something at her side, then danced away as Kimber Boh told him to behave. Her thoughts scattered momentarily, and she watched the old man slip into the forest wilderness, laughing and chittering like one half gone into madness. She breathed the cool afternoon air deeply, seeing the shadows of early evening beginning to slip down about the land. She found herself missing Allanon. Odd that she should, for his dark and formidable presence had been small comfort to her in the days that she had traveled with him. But there had been that strange kinship between them, that sense of understanding, and of being in some way similar...

      Was it the magic they shared-the wishsong and the Druid power?

      She found tears forming in her eyes as she pictured his broken form once again, slumped down within that sunlit glen, bloodied and torn. How terrible he had looked to her, stricken by impending death, his hand lifting to touch her forehead with his blood...A lonely, worn figure in her mind, steeped not so much in Druid power as in Druid guilt, he had bound himself by his father's oath to purge the Druids of the responsibility they bore for unleashing the dark magic into the world of men.

      And now that responsibility had been passed to her.

      Afternoon faded into evening, and the little company passed down out of the Anar wilderness into the valley of Hearthstone. Brin ceased to puzzle over the words of the Grimpond and began to think instead of what she was to. tell her companions and what she was to do with the small bit of knowledge that she had gained. Her own lot in this matter was fixed, but not so that of the others-not even Rone. If she were. to tell him all that she had been told by the Grimpond, perhaps he could be persuaded to let her go on alone. If it was predetermined that she must go to her death, perhaps she could at least keep him from going to his.

      An hour later they were gathered together before the fireplace in the little cottage, drawn up in covered chairs and on benches-Brin, the old man, the girl, and Rone Leah. The warmth of the flames danced off their faces as the night settled down, cold and still. Whisper slept peacefully upon his rug, his giant body stretched full-length before the fire. Invisible most of the day on their journey to and from the Grimpond, the moor cat had reappeared on their return and promptly curled up in his favorite resting spot.

      "The Grimpond appeared to me in my own image," Brin began quietly as the others listened. "It took my face and taunted me with what it said I was."

      "It plays those games," Kimber said sympathetically. "You must not be bothered by it."

      "All lies and deceits! It is a dark and twisted thing," Cogline whispered, his sticklike frame hunched forward. "Locked within its pool since before the loss of the old world, speaking riddles no man could hope to unravel-or woman either."

      "Grandfather," Kimber Boh cautioned gently.

      "What was it that the Grimpond had to say?" Rone wanted to know.

      "What I have told you," Brin replied. "That the Sword of Leah is in the hands of the Spider Gnomes, pulled from the waters of the Chard Rush. That the way into the Maelmord without being seen by the walkers is through the sewers of Graymark."

      "There was no deceit in this?" he pressed.

      She shook her head slowly, thinking of the dark way in which she had used the wishsong's magic. "Not in this."

      Cogline snorted. "Well, the rest was lies, I'll wager!"

      Brin turned to him. "The Grimpond said that death would come to me in the Maelmord-that I could not escape it."

      There was a hushed silence. "Lies, just as the old man says," Rone muttered finally.

      "The Grimpond said that your death awaits you there as well; Rone. It said that we both carry the seeds of that death in the magic we would wield-yours in the Sword of Leah, mine in the wishsong."

      "And you believe that nonsense?" The highlander shook his head. "Well, I don't. I can look after the both of us."

      Brin smiled sadly. "But what if the Grimpond's words are not lies? What if that part, too, is truth? Must I bear your death on my conscience, Rone? Will you insist on dying with me?"

      Rone flushed at the rebuke. "If I must. Allanon made me your protector when I sought to be so. What manner of protector would I be if I were to abandon you now and let you go on alone? If it is predetermined that we should die, Brin, then let that not be on your conscience. Let it be on mine.

      Brin had tears in her eyes again and she swallowed hard against the feelings coursing through her.

      "Girl, girl, no crying now, no crying!" Cogline was suddenly on his feet, shuffling over to where she sat. To her surprise, he reached up gently and brushed the tears away. "It's all games with the Grimpond, all lies and half-truths. The shade predicts everyone's death as if it were blessed with special insight. Here, here. What can a spirit thing know of death?"

      He patted Brin on the shoulder, then scowled inexplicably at Rone, as if the fault were somehow his, and muttered something about dratted trespassers.

      "Grandfather, we must help them," Kimber said suddenly.

      Cogline wheeled on her, bristling. "Help them? And just what is it that we've been doing, girl? Gathering firewood?"

      "No, I don't think that, grandfather, but..."

      "But nothing!" Crooked arms gestured impatiently. "Of course we're going to help them!"

      Valegirl and highlander stared at the old man in astonishment. Cogline cackled shrilly, then kicked at the sleeping Whisper and brought the cat's whiskered face up with a jerk. "Me and this worthless animal-we're going to help all we can! Can't be having tears like those! Can't be having guests wandering all over the place with no one to show them the way!"

      "Grandfather..." the girl started to interrupt, but the old man brushed her aside.

      "Haven't had a run at those Spider Gnomes for some time now, have we? Good idea to let them know that we're still here in case they think we moved out. Up on Toffer Ridge, they'll be-no, not this time of year. No, they'll be down off the ridge to the moor with the season's change at hand. That's their ground; that's where they'd take a sword like that if they pulled it from the river. Whisper will track it for us. Then we'll turn east, skirt the moor, and cross to the Ravenshorn. Day or two, maybe, all told."

      He wheeled back again. "But not you, Kimber. Can't have you out and about in that country. Walkers and all are too dangerous. You stay here and keep the home."

      Kimber gave him a hopeless look. "He still thinks of me as a child. I am the one who should worry for him."

      "Ha! You don't have to worry for me!" Cogline Snapped.

      Kimber smiled indulgently, her pixie face calm. "Of course I have to worry for you. I love you." She turned to Brin. "Brin, you have to understand something. Grandfather never leaves the valley anymore without me. He requires the use of my eyes and my memory from time to time. Grandfather, don't be angry with what I say, but you know that sometimes you are forgetful. Besides, Whisper will not always do what you tell him. He will disappear on you when you least want him to, if you try to go alone."

      Cogline frowned. "Stupid cat does that, all right." He glanced down at Whisper, who blinked back at him sleepily. "Waste of my time trying to teach him differently. Very well, I suppose we'll all have to go. But you keep out of harm's way, girl. Leave that part to me."

      Brin and Rone exchanged hurried glances.

      Kimber turned to them. "It is settled then. We can leave at dawn."

      The Valegirl and the highlander stared at each other in disbelief. What was happening? As if it were the most natural thing in the world, it had just been decided that a girl barely more than Brin's age, a half-crazed old man, and a sometimes disappearing cat would retrieve for them the missing Sword of Leah from some creatures they had labeled as Spider Gnomes and then afterward guide them into the mountains of the Ravenshorn and Graymark! Gnomes and walkers and other dangerous beings would be all about-beings whose power had destroyed the Druid Allanon-and the old man and the girl were acting as if none of that really made any difference at all.

      "Kimber, no," Brin said finally, not knowing what else to say. "You can't go with us."

      "She's right," Rone agreed. "You can't even begin to understand what we'll be up against."

      Kimber Boh look at each of them in turn. "I understand better than you think. I told you before-this land is my home. And grandfather's. We know its dangers and we understand them."

      "You don't understand the walkers!" Rone exploded. "What can the two of you do against the walkers?"

      Kimber held her ground. "I don't know. Much the same as you, I'd guess. Avoid them."

      "And what, if you can't avoid them?" Rone pressed. "What then?"

      Cogline snatched a leather bag belted at his waist and held it forth. "Give them a taste of my magic, outlander! Give them a taste of a fire they know nothing about at all!"

      The highlander frowned doubtfully and looked at Brin for help. "This is crazy!" he snapped.

      "Do not be so quick to dismiss my grandfather's magic," Kimber advised, with a reassuring nod to the old man. "He has lived in this wilderness all of his life and survived a great many dangers. He can do things you might not expect of him. He will be of great help to you. As will Whisper and I as well."

      Brin shook her head. "I think this is a very bad idea, Kimber."

      The girl nodded her understanding. "You will change your mind, Brin. In any case, you really don't have a choice. You need Whisper to track. You need grandfather to guide you. And you need me to help them do that."

      Brin started to object once more, then stopped. What was she thinking? They had come to Hearthstone in the first place because they needed someone to guide them through Darklin Reach. There was only one man who could do that, and that man was Cogline. Without Cogline, they might wander the wilderness country of the Anar for weeks-weeks that they did not have. Now that they had found him and he was offering them the help they so desperately needed, here she was trying to refuse it!

      She hesitated. Perhaps she had good reason for doing so. Kimber appeared to her as a girl whose heart was greater than her strength. But the fact remained that Cogline was unlikely to go anywhere without her. Did Brin, then, have the right to put her concern for Kimber above the dictates of the trust which she had been given by Allanon?

      She did not think so.

      "I believe the matter is decided," Kimber said softly.

      Brin looked at Rone one final time. The highlander shook his head in helpless resignation.

      Brin turned back and smiled wearily. "I guess it is," she agreed and hoped against reason that it had been decided correctly.

 

 

      35

They departed Hearthstone at dawn of the following day and journeyed northeast through the forestland toward the dark rise of Toffer Ridge. Travel was slow, as it had been during their trek north to the Grimpond. The whole of the wilderness beyond the valley between the Ravenshorn and the Rabb was a treacherous maze of craggy ravines and drops that could cripple the unwary. With packs strapped tightly across their backs and weapons secured about their waists, Brin, Rone, Kimber Boh, and Cogline wound their way cautiously ahead on a warm, sweetsmelling autumn day filled with sound and color. Only occasionally visible, the shadowy form of Whisper kept pace in the trees about them. The members of the little company felt rested and alert, much more so than they should have, since their discussion of the previous night had not ended until early morning. They knew that lack of sleep would catch up with them eventually, but for now, at least, they were filled with the tension and excitement of their quest, and all traces of weariness were easily brushed aside.

      Not so easily dismissed, however, were Brin's feelings of uncertainty about taking along Kimber and Cogline. The decision had been made, the pledge given, and the journey begun-yet still the uncertainty that had troubled her from the first would not subside. Some doubts and fears would have been there in any case, she supposed, fostered by her knowledge of the dangers that lay ahead and by the haunting prophecies of the Grimpond. But such doubts and fears would have been for her and for Rone-Rone, whose determination to stand with her in this was so strong that she had finally accepted that he would never be persuaded to leave her. The doubts and fears would not have been, as they were now, for the old man and the girl. All of their reassurances notwithstanding, the Valegirl still thought neither strong enough to survive the power of the dark magic. How could she see it otherwise? It made no difference that they had lived all these years within the wilderness of the Anar, for the dangers they would face now were not dangers made of this world and time. What magics or lore could they hope to employ that would turn aside the Mord Wraiths when the walkers were next encountered?

      It frightened Brin to think of the power of the Mord Wraiths being turned against the girl and the old man. It frightened her more than anything that she could imagine might happen to her. How could she live with the knowledge that she had permitted them to come on this journey, if it were to end in their deaths?

      And yet Kimber seemed so certain of herself and of her grandfather. There was neither fear nor doubt in her mind. There was only her self-assurance, determination, and that unshakable sense of obligation toward Brin and Rone that motivated her in what she had undertaken to do for them.

      "We are friends, Brin, and friends do for each other what they. see needs to be done," the girl had explained in the late hours of the previous night when all talk had drifted into weary whispers. "Friendship is a thing sensed inwardly as much as a thing pledged openly. One feels friendship and becomes bound by it. It was this that drew Whisper to me and gained me his loyalty. I loved him as he loved me, and each of us sensed that in the other. I have sensed it with you as well. We are to be friends, all of us, and if we are to be friends, then we must share both good and bad in our friendship. Your needs become mine."

      "That's a very beautiful sentiment, Kimber," she had replied. "But what if my needs are too great, as they are in this instance? What if my needs are too dangerous to share?"

      "All the more reason that they must be shared." Kimber had smiled somberly. "And shared with friends. We must help each other if the friendship is to mean anything at all."

      There really wasn't much to be said after that. Brin might have argued that Kimber barely knew her, that she was owed no obligation, and that this quest she had been given was hers alone and not the responsibility of the girl and her grandfather. But such arguments would have meant nothing to Kimber, who saw so clearly the relationship between them as one of equals, and whose sense of commitment was such that there could be no compromise.

      The journey wore on and the day slipped past. It was a savage timberland through which they passed, a rugged mass of towering black oaks, elms, and gnarled hickories. Their lofty, twisted limbs stretched wide like giants' arms. Through the bones of the forest roof, skeletal and stripped of their leaves, the sky shone deep crystal blue, with sunshine streaming down to brighten the woodland shadows with friendly patches of light. Yet the sunlight was but a brief daytime visitor to this wilderness. Here, only the shadows belonged-pervasive, impenetrable, filled with a subtle hint of hidden dangers, of things unseen and unheard, and of a phantom life that came awake only when the light was completely gone and the forestland lay wrapped in blackness. That life lay waiting, concealed silently within the darkened heart of these woodlands, a cunning and hateful force that resented the intrusion of these creatures into its private world and would snuff them out as a wind would a candle's small flame. Brin sensed its presence. It whispered softly in her mind, worming past the slender thread of confidence lent her by the presence of those who traveled with her, warning her that when nightfall came again, she must be very careful.

      Then the sun began to drop below the western skyline and dusk to settle over the land. The dark line of Toffer Ridge loomed before them, a rugged and uneven shadow, and Cogline took them through a twisting pass that breached its wall. They walked in silence, fatigue now beginning to slip through them. Insect sounds filled the darkness, and high above them, lost in the tangle of the great trees, night birds sent forth their shrill calls. Ridgeline and wilderness forest tightened about them, closing them away in the darkened pass. The air, warm all day, grew hot and unpleasant, and its smell turned stale. That hidden life which waited within the woodland shadows came awake and rose up to look about...

      Abruptly, the timber broke apart before them, sloping sharply downward through the ridgeline into a vast, featureless lowland shrouded in mist and lighted in eerie glow by stars and a strange, pale orange gibbous moon that hung at the edge of the eastern horizon. Sullen and dismal, the sprawling bottomland was little more than a shadowed.. black mass of stillness that seemed to open into the earth like some bottomless canyon where Toffer Ridge slipped away into the mist.

      "Olden Moor," Kimber whispered softly.

      Brin stared down at the moor in watchful silence. She could feel it staring back.

 

      Midnight came and went, and time slowed until it seemed to cease all passage. A hint of wind fluttered enticingly across Brin's dust-streaked face and faded away. She looked up expectantly, but there was nothing more. The heat returned, harsh and oppressive. She felt as if she had been shut within a furnace, its unseen fires snatching from her aching lungs the very air she needed to survive. In the bottomland, the autumn night gave nothing back of its cooling promise. Sweat soaked Brin's clothing through, ran down her body in distracting rivulets, and coated her worn countenance with a silver gray sheen. Muscles cramped and knotted wearily. Though she shifted about frequently in an effort to relieve the discomfort, she quickly found there were no new positions to be tried. The ache simply followed. Swarms of gnats buzzed annoyingly, drawn by the moisture from her body, biting at her face and hands as she brushed at them uselessly. All about her, the air reeked of rotting wood and stagnant water.

      Crouched in the concealing shadows of a clump of rocks with Rone, Kimber, and Cogline, she stared downward along the base of the ridgeline to where the camp of the Spider Gnomes lay settled at the edge of Olden Moor. A jumble of makeshift huts and burrows, the camp stretched between the base of Toffer Ridge and the darkness of the moor. A scattering of fires burned in its midst, their sullen, ragged light barely penetrating the gloom. The crooked, bent shadows of the camp's inhabitants passed through the muted glare. The Spider Gnomes, their strange and grotesque bodies covered with gray hair, were naked to the elements as they skittered about in the withered long grass on all fours, hunched and faceless. Large groups of them gathered at the edge of the moor, shielded from the mist by the flames as they chanted dully into the night.

      "Calling to the dark powers," Cogline had informed his companions hours earlier, after first bringing them to this hiding place. "A tribal people, the Gnomes-the Spider folk more so than any. Believe in spirits and dark things that rise from other worlds with the change of seasons. Call to them for their own strength, do the Gnomes-hoping at the same time that strength doesn't turn against them. Ha! Superstitious stuff!"

      But the dark things were real sometimes, however, Cogline told them. There were things within Olden Moor as dark and terrible as those that inhabited the forests of the Wolfsktaag-things born of other worlds and lost magics. They were called Werebeasts. They lived within the mists, creatures of dreadful shapes and forms that preyed upon body and mind, snaring mortal beings weaker than they and draining away their lives. The Werebeasts were not imaginary, Cogline admitted grimly. It was against their coming that the Spider Gnomes sought to protect themselves-for the Spider Gnomes were the Werebeasts' favorite food.

      "Now, with the autumn's change to winter, the Gnomes come down to the moor to call out against the rise of the mists." The old man's voice had been a harsh whisper. "Gnomes think the winter won't come or the mists stay low if they don't. A superstitious folk. Come here like this each fall for nearly a month, whole camps, whole tribes of them-just migrate down off the ridge. Call out to the dark powers day and night so that the winter will keep them safe and keep the beasts away." He grinned secretively and winked. "Works, too. Werebeasts feed off them for that whole month, you see. Eat enough to carry them through the winter. No need to go onto the ridge after that!"

      Cogline had known where the Spider people would be found. With the fall of night, the little group had traveled north along the base of the ridgeline until the Gnome camp had been sighted. Then, as they hunched down within the concealment of the rocks, Kimber Boh had explained what must happen next.

      "They will have your sword with them, Rone. A sword such as that, pulled from the waters of the Chard Rush, will be considered a talisman sent to them by their dark powers. They will set it before them, hoping it will shield them from the Werebeasts. We must discover where it is housed and then steal it back from them."

      "How will we do that?" Rone had asked quickly. He had talked of little else for the whole of their journey there. The lure of the sword's power had claimed him once more.

      "Whisper will track it," she had replied. "If given your scent, he can follow it to the sword, however well concealed. Once he has found it, he will return to lead us in."

      So Whisper had been given the highlander's scent and dispatched into the night. He had gone soundlessly, fading into the shadows, lost from view almost instantly. The four from Hearthstone had been waiting ever since for his return, crouched down in the humid dark and the fetid dampness of the bottomland, listening and watching. The moor cat had been gone a very long time.

      Brin closed her eyes against the weariness that seeped through her and tried to block the sound of the Gnomes chanting from her mind. A dull, empty monotone, it went on ceaselessly. Several times, while she listened, there had been screams from close to the mists-shrill, quick, and horror-stricken. Almost at once, though, they had ceased. Still the chanting went on...

      A monstrous shadow detached itself from the dark right in front of her, and she started to her feet with a small cry.

      "Hush, girl!" Cogline yanked her down again, one bony hand slipping tightly across her mouth. "It's only the cat!"

      Whisper's massive head materialized then, luminous blue eyes winking lazily as he padded up to Kimber. The girl bent down to wrap her arms about him, stroking him gently, whispering in his ear. For several moments she spoke with the moor cat, and the cat nuzzled and rubbed up against her. Then she turned back to them, excitement dancing in her eyes.

      "He has found the sword, Rone!"

      Instantly Rone was beside her. "Take me to where it can be found, Kimber!" he begged. "We will have a weapon then with which to face the walkers and any other dark thing that might serve them!"

      Brin fought back against the bitterness that welled up suddenly within her. Rone has forgotten already what little good the sword did him in Allanon's defense, she thought. He was consumed by his need for it.

      Cogline called them close, while Kimber spoke a quick word to Whisper. Then they began their descent into the camp of the Gnomes. They crept down off the rise on which they had hidden, crouched low against the shadow of the ridgeline. Light from the distant fires barely touched them here, and they slipped swiftly ahead. Warnings nudged Brin Ohmsford's restless mind, whispering to her that she must turn back, that nothing good lay this way. Too late, she whispered back. Too late.

      The camp drew closer. In the gradual brightening of the fires, the Spider Gnomes grew more distinct, crouched forms creeping about the huts and burrows like the insects for which they were named. They were loathsome things to look upon, all hair and sharp ferret eyes, bent and crooked forms drawn from some best-forgotten nightmare. Dozens of them slipped about, emerging from and then disappearing into the gloom, chittering in a language less than human. All the while, they continued to gather before the wall of mist and chant in hollow, toneless cadence.

      The moor cat and his four companions crept soundlessly along the perimeter of the camp, circling toward its far side. The mist drifted past them in trailing wisps, broken free of the wall that hung motionlessly over the empty reaches of the moor. It was damp and clinging, unpleasantly warm as it touched their skin. Brin brushed at it distastefully.

      Ahead, Whisper drew to a halt, his saucer eyes swinging about to find his mistress. Sweating freely now, Brin glanced about, desperately trying to get her bearings. The darkness was filled with shadows and movement, the warmth of the autumn night, and the drone of the Spider Gnomes chanting before the moor.

      "We must go down into the camp," Kimber was saying, her voice a soft, excited whisper.

      "Now we'll see them jump!" Cogline cackled gleefully. "Stay clear of them when they do!"

      At a word from the girl, Whisper turned down into the Gnome encampment. Slinking soundlessly through the mist, the giant cat moved toward the nearest gathering of buts and burrows. Kimber, Cogline, and Rone followed, crouched low. Brin trailed behind them, her eyes searching the night.

      To her left, things moved at the fringes of the firelight, crawling through a mass of rocks and slipping into the tall grass. Others appeared further out to their right, lurching toward the sound of the chancing and the wall of mist. Smoke from the fires drifted into Brin's eyes now, mingling with trailers of fog, stinging and sharp.

      And suddenly she could not see. Anger and fear rose within her. Her eyes teared and she brushed at them with her hands...