The Heritage of Shannara (13 page)

“A school?” Par guessed aloud.

Morgan shook his head. “An orphanage.”

He led them through the groups of children, onto the porch and around to a side door settled well back in the shadows of an alcove. He knocked on the door and waited. When the door opened a crack, he said, “Can you spare a poor man some food?”

“Morgan!” The door flew open. An elderly Dwarf woman stood in the opening, gray-haired and aproned, her face bluff and squarish, her smile working its way past lines of weariness and disappointment. “Morgan Leah, what a pleasant surprise! How are you, youngster?”

“I am my father's pride and joy, as always,” Morgan replied with a grin. “May we come in?”

“Of course. Since when have you needed to ask?” The woman stepped aside and ushered them past, hugging Morgan and beaming at Par and Coll, who smiled back uncertainly. She shut the door behind them and said, “So you would like something to eat, would you?”

“We would gladly give our lives for the opportunity,” Morgan declared with a laugh. “Granny Elise, these are my friends, Par and Coll Ohmsford of Shady Vale. They are temporarily … homeless,” he finished.

“Aren't we all,” Granny Elise replied gruffly. She extended a callused hand to the brothers, who each gripped it in his own. She examined them critically. “Been wrestling with bears, have you, Morgan?”

Morgan touched his face experimentally, tracing the cuts and scrapes. “Something worse than that, I'm afraid. The road to Culhaven is not what it once was.”

“Nor is Culhaven. Have a seat, child—you and your friends. I'll bring you a plate of muffins and fruit.”

There were several long tables with benches in the center of the rather considerable kitchen and the three friends chose the nearest and sat. The kitchen was large but rather dark, and the furnishings were poor. Granny Elise bustled about industriously, providing the promised breakfast and glasses of some sort of extracted juice. “I'd offer you milk, but I have to ration what I have for the children,” she apologized.

They were eating hungrily when a second woman appeared, a Dwarf as well and older still, small and wizened, with a sharp face and quick, birdlike movements that never seemed to cease. She crossed the room matter-of-factly on seeing Morgan, who rose at once and gave her a small peck on the cheek.

“Auntie Jilt,” Morgan introduced her.

“Most pleased,” she announced in a way that suggested they might need convincing. She seated herself next to Granny Elise and immediately began work on some needlepoint she had brought with her into the room, fingers flying.

“These ladies are mothers to the world,” Morgan explained as he returned to his meal. “Me included, though I'm not an orphan like their other charges. They adopted me because I'm irresistibly charming.”

“You begged like the rest of them the first time we saw you, Morgan Leah!” Auntie Jilt snapped, never looking up from her work. “That is the only reason we took you in—the only reason we take any of them in.”

“Sisters, though you'd never know it,” Morgan quickly went on. “Granny Elise is like a goose-down comforter, all soft and warm. But Auntie Jilt— well, Auntie Jilt is more like a stone pallet!”

Auntie Jilt sniffed. “Stone lasts a good deal longer than goose down in these times. And both longer still than Highland syrup!”

Morgan and Granny Elise laughed, Auntie Jilt joined in after a moment, and Par and Coll found themselves smiling as well. It seemed odd to do so, their thoughts still filled with images of the village and its people, the sounds of the orphaned children playing outside a pointed reminder of how things really stood. But there was something indomitable about these old women, something that transcended the misery and poverty, something that whispered of promise and hope.

When breakfast was finished, Granny Elise busied herself at the sink and Auntie Jilt departed to check on the children. Morgan whispered, “These ladies have been operating the orphanage for almost thirty years. The Federation lets them alone because they help keep the children out from underfoot. Nice, huh? There are hundreds of children with no parents, so the orphanage is always full. When the children are old enough, they are smuggled out. If they are allowed to stay too long, the Federation sends them to the work camps or sells them. Every so often, the ladies guess wrong.” He shook his head. “I don't know how they stand it. I would have gone mad long ago.”

Granny Elise came back and sat with them. “Has Morgan told you how we met?” she asked the Ohmsfords. “Oh, well, it was quite something. He brought us food and clothes for the children, he gave us money to buy what we could, and he helped guide a dozen children north to be placed with families in the free territories.”

“Oh, for goodness sake, Granny!” Morgan interjected, embarrassed.

“Exactly! And he works around the house now and then when he visits, too,” she added, ignoring him. “We have become his own private little charity, haven't we, Morgan?”

“That reminds me—here.” Morgan reached into his tunic and extracted a small pouch. The contents jingled as he passed it over. “I won a wager a week or so back about some perfume.” He winked at the Valemen.

“Bless you, Morgan.” Granny Elise rose and came around to kiss him on the cheek. “You seem quite exhausted—all of you. There are spare beds in the back and plenty of blankets. You can sleep until dinnertime.”

She ushered them from the kitchen to a small room at the rear of the big house where there were several beds, a wash basin, blankets, and towels.
Par glanced around, noticing at once that the windows were shuttered and the curtains carefully drawn.

Granny Elise noticed the look that the Valeman exchanged with his brother. “Sometimes, my guests don't wish to draw attention to themselves,” she said quietly. Her eyes were sharp. “Isn't that the case with you?”

Morgan went over and kissed her gently. “Perceptive as always, old mother. We'll need a meeting with Steff. Can you take care of it?”

Granny Elise looked at him a moment, then nodded wordlessly, kissed him back and slipped from the room.

It was twilight when they woke, the shuttered room filled with shadows and silence. Granny Elise appeared, her bluff face gentle and reassuring, slipping through the room on cat's feet as she touched each and whispered that it was time, before disappearing back the way she had come. Morgan Leah and the Ohmsfords rose to find their clothes clean and fresh-smelling again. Granny Elise had been busy while they slept.

While they were dressing, Morgan said, “We'll meet with Steff tonight. He's part of the Dwarf Resistance, and the Resistance has eyes and ears everywhere. If Walker Boh still lives in the Eastland, even in the deepest part of the Anar, Steff will know.”

He finished pulling on his boots and stood up. “Steff was one of the orphans Granny took in. He's like a son to her. Other than Auntie Jilt, he's the only family she has left.”

They went out from the sleeping room and down the hall to the kitchen. The children had already finished dinner and retired to their rooms on the upper two stories, save for a handful of tiny ones that Auntie Jilt was in the process of feeding, patiently spooning soup to first one mouth, then the next and so on until it was time to begin the cycle all over again. She looked up as they entered and nodded wordlessly.

Granny Elise sat them down at one of the long tables and brought them plates of food and glasses of harsh ale. From overhead came the sounds of thumping and yelling as the children played. “It is hard to supervise so many when there is only the two of us,” she apologized, serving Coll a second helping of meat stew. “But the women we hire to help out never seem to stay very long.”

“Were you able to get a message to Steff ?” Morgan asked quietly.

Granny Elise nodded, her smile suddenly sad. “I wish I could see more of that child, Morgan. I worry so about him.”

They finished their meal and sat quietly in the evening shadows as Granny Elise and Auntie Jilt finished with the children and saw them all off to bed. A pair of candles burned on the table where the three sat, but the remainder of the room was left dark. The voices upstairs faded away one by one, and the silence deepened.

Auntie Jilt came back into the kitchen after a time and sat with them. She didn't speak, her sharp face lowered as she concentrated on her needlepoint, her head bobbing slightly. Outside, somewhere, a bell rang three
times and went still. Auntie Jilt looked up briefly. “Federation curfew,” she muttered. “No one is allowed out after it sounds.”

The room went silent again. Granny Elise appeared and worked quietly at the sink. One of the children upstairs began to cry and she went out again. The Ohmsfords and Morgan Leah looked at each other and the room and waited.

Then, suddenly, there was a soft tapping at the kitchen door. Three taps. Auntie Jilt looked up, her fingers stilled, and waited. The seconds slipped away. Then the tapping came again, three times, a pause, three times again.

Auntie Jilt rose quickly, walked to the door, unlatched it and peeked out. Then she opened the door wide for an instant and a shadowy figure slipped into the room. Auntie Jilt pushed the door closed again. Granny Elise appeared at the same instant from the hall, motioned Morgan and the Ohmsford brothers to their feet, and led them over to where the stranger stood.

“This is Teel,” said Granny Elise. “She will take you to Steff.”

It was hard to tell much of anything about Teel. She was a Dwarf, but smaller than most, rather slight, clothed in dark, nondescript forest clothing including a short cloak and hood. Her features were hidden by a strange leather mask that wrapped the whole of her face, save for her right jaw and her mouth. A glimmer of dusky blond hair was visible within the covering of the hood.

Granny Elise reached up and hugged Morgan. “Be careful, youngster,” she cautioned. She smiled, patted Par and Coll gently on the shoulder, and hastened to the door. She peeked through the curtains for a moment, then nodded. Teel went out through the door without a word. The Ohmsfords and Morgan Leah went with her.

Outside, they slipped silently along the side of the old house and through a back fence onto a narrow pathway. They followed the pathway to an empty road, then turned right. The mix of cottages and shacks that lined the roadway were dark, their silhouettes ragged and broken against the sky. Teel moved them down the road quickly and into a patch of fir. She stopped then and dropped into a crouch, motioning them down with her. Moments later, a Federation patrol of five appeared. They joked and talked among themselves as they passed, unconcerned with any who might hear them. Then their voices faded and they were gone. Teel stood up, and they were off again.

They stayed on the road for another hundred yards, then turned into the forest. They were on the very edge of the village now, almost due north, and the sounds of insects began to break through the stillness. They slipped along silently through the trees, Teel pausing now and then to listen before continuing on. The smell of wildflowers filled the air, sweet and strong against the reek of garbage.

Then Teel stopped at a line of thick brush, pushed the branches aside, reached down to grip a hidden iron ring and pulled. A trapdoor lifted clear of the earth to reveal a stairway. They felt their way along its walls until
they were completely inside and crouched there in the dark. Teel secured the trapdoor behind them, lit a candle and took the lead once more. The company started down.

It was a short descent. The stairs ended after two dozen steps and became a tunnel, the walls and ceiling shored by thick wooden beams and pinned by iron bolts. Teel offered no explanation for the tunnel, but simply moved ahead into it. Twice the tunnel branched in several directions, and each time she made her choice without hesitating. It occurred to Par that if they had to find their way out again without Teel, they probably couldn't do it.

The tunnel ended minutes later at an iron door. Teel struck the door sharply with the hilt of her dagger, paused, then struck it twice more. The locks on the other side snapped free and the door swung open.

The Dwarf who stood there was no older than they, a stout, muscular fellow with a shading of beard and long hair the color of cinnamon, a face that was scarred all over, and the biggest mace Par had ever seen strapped across his back. He had the top half of one ear missing and a gold ring dangling from the remainder.

“Morgan!” he greeted and embraced the Highlander warmly. His smile brightened his fierce countenance as he pulled the other inside and looked past him to where Par and Coll stood nervously waiting. “Friends?”

“The best,” Morgan answered at once. “Steff, this is Par and Coll Ohmsford from Shady Vale.”

The Dwarf nodded. “You are welcome here, Valemen.” He broke away from Morgan and reached out to grip their hands. “Come take a seat, tell me what brought you.”

They were in an underground room filled with stores, boxed, crated and wrapped, that surrounded a long table with benches. Steff motioned them onto the benches, then poured each a cup of ale and joined them. Teel took up a position by the door, settling carefully onto a small stool.

“Is this where you live now?” Morgan asked, glancing about. “It needs work.”

Steff 's smile wrinkled his rough face. “I live a lot of places, Morgan, and they all need work. This one is better than most. Underground, though, like the others. We Dwarves all live underground these days, either here or in the mines or in our graves. Sad.”

He hoisted his mug. “Good health to us and misfortune to our enemies,” he toasted. They all drank but Teel, who sat watching. Steff placed his mug back on the table. “Is your father well?” he asked Morgan.

The Highlander nodded. “I brought Granny Elise a little something to buy bread with. She worries about you. How long since you've been to see her?”

The Dwarf 's smile dropped away. “It's too dangerous to go just now. See my face?” He pointed, tracing the scars with his finger. “The Federation caught me three months back.” He glanced at Par and Coll conspiratorially. “Morgan wouldn't know, you see. He hasn't been to see me of late.
When he comes to Culhaven, he prefers the company of old ladies and children.”