The Heritage of Shannara (53 page)

Coll did the same, his face empty as he fixed his gaze on a spot on the far wall, as if convinced that what was happening was no stranger than what he had expected. Par hesitated, then sat down as well, his companion something that might have been either a cat or a dog—it was impossible to tell which. He felt slightly ridiculous.

They sat there then and waited, not speaking, barely looking at each other. Damson began stroking the worn fur backing on her rabbit. Coll was a statue. Par's patience began to slip as the minutes passed and nothing happened.

Then one after another, the lights went out. Par started to his feet, but Damson said quickly, “Sit still.”

All of the lights but one disappeared. The one that remained was at the opening of the first room they had entered. Its glow was distant and barely
reached to where they sat. Par waited for his eyes to adjust to the near darkness; when they did, he found himself staring at a roundish, bearded face that had popped up across from him two seats down from Damson. Blank, dilated ferret eyes peered at him, shifted to find Coll, blinked, and stared some more.

“Good evening to you, Mole,” Damson Rhee said.

The Mole lifted his head a shade; his neck and shoulders came into view, and his hands and arms lifted onto the table. He was covered with hair, a dark, furry coat. It grew on every patch of skin showing, save for where his nose and cheeks and a swatch of forehead glimmered like ivory in the faint light. His rounded head swiveled slowly, and his child's fingers locked together in a pose of contentment.

“Good evening to you, lovely Damson,” he said.

He spoke in a child's voice, but it sounded queer somehow, as if he were speaking from out of a barrel or through a screen of water. His eyes moved from Par to Coll, from Coll to Par.

“I heard you coming and put on the lights for you,” he said. “But I don't much like the lights, so now that you are here, I have put them out again. Is that all right?”

Damson nodded. “Perfectly.”

“Whom have you brought with you on your visit?”

“Valemen.”

“Valemen?”

“Brothers, from a village south of here, a long way away. Par Ohms-ford. Coll Ohmsford.”

She pointed to each and the eyes shifted. “Welcome to my home. Shall we have tea?”

He disappeared without waiting for an answer, moving so quietly that, try as he might, even in the almost utter silence, Par could not hear him. He could smell the tea as it was brought, yet failed to see it materialize until the cups were placed before him. There were two of them, one regular size and one quite tiny. They were old, and the paint that decorated them was faded and worn.

Par watched doubtfully while Damson offered a sip from the smaller cup to the toy rabbit she held. “Are all the children fine?” she asked conversationally.

“Quite well,” the Mole replied, seated again now where he had first appeared. He was holding a large bear, to whom he offered his own cup. Coll and Par followed the ritual without speaking. “Chalt, you know, has been bad again, sneaking his tea and cookies when he wishes, disrupting things rather thoroughly. When I go up to hear the news through the street grates and wall passages, he seems to believe he has license to reorganize things to his own satisfaction. Very annoying.” He gave the bear a cross look. “Lida had a very bad fever, but is recovered now. And Westra cut her paw.”

Par glanced at Coll, and this time his brother glanced back.

“Anyone new to the family?” Damson asked.

“Everlind,” the Mole said. He stared at her for a moment, then pointed to the rabbit she was holding. “She came to live with us just two nights ago. She likes it much better here than on the streets.”

Par hardly knew what to think. The Mole apparently collected junk discarded by the people of the city above and brought it down into his lair like a pack rat. To him, the animals were real—or at least that was the game he played. Par wondered uneasily if he knew the difference.

The Mole was looking at him. “The city whispers of something that has upset the Federation—disruptions, intruders, a threat to its rule. The street patrols are increased and the gate watches challenge everyone. There is a tightening of the chains.” He paused, then turned to Damson. He said, almost eagerly, “It is better to be here, lovely Damson—here, underground.”

Damson put down her cup. “The disruption is part of the reason we have come, Mole.”

The Mole didn't seem to hear. “Yes, better to be underground, safe within the earth, beneath the streets and the towers, where the Federation never comes.”

Damson shook her head firmly. “We are not here for sanctuary.”

The Mole blinked, disappointment registering in his eyes. He set his own cup aside and the animal he held with it, and he cocked his rounded head. “I found Everlind at the back of the home of a man who provides counting services for the Federation tax collectors. He is quick with numbers and tallies far more accurately than others of his skill. Once, he was an advisor to the people of the city, but the people couldn't pay him as well as the Federation, so he took his services there. All day long, he works in the building where the taxes are held, then goes home to his family, his wife and his daughter, to whom Everlind once belonged. Last week, the man bought his daughter a new toy kitten, silky white fur and green button eyes. He bought it with money the Federation gave him from what they had collected. So his daughter discarded Everlind. She found the new kitten far prettier to look upon.”

He looked at them. “Neither the father nor the daughter understands what they have given up. Each sees only what is on the surface and nothing of what lies beneath. That is the danger of living above ground.”

“It is,” Damson agreed softly. “But that is something we must change, those of us who wish to continue to live there.”

The Mole rubbed his hands again, looking down at them as he did so, lost in some contemplation of his own. The room was a still life in which the Mole and his visitors sat among the discards and rejects of other lives and listened to what might have been the whisper of their own.

The Mole looked up again, his eyes fixing on Damson. “Beautiful Damson, what is it that you wish?”

Damson's willowy form straightened, and she brushed back the stray locks of her fiery hair. “There were once tunnels beneath the palace of the Kings of Tyrsis. If they are still there, we need to go into them.”

The Mole stiffened. “Beneath the palace?”

“Beneath the palace and into the Pit.”

There was a long silence as the Mole stared at her unblinking. Almost unconsciously, his hands went out to retrieve the animal he had been holding. He patted it gently. “There are things out of darkest night and mind in the Pit,” he said softly.

“Shadowen,” Damson said.

“Shadowen? Yes, that name suits them. Shadowen.”

“Have you seen them, Mole?”

“I have seen everything that lives in the city. I am the earth's own eyes.”

“Are there tunnels that lead into the Pit? Can you take us through them?”

The Mole's face lost all expression, then pulled away from the table's edge and dropped back into shadow. For an instant, Par thought he was gone. But he was merely hiding, returned to the comfort of the dark to consider what he was being asked. The toy animal went with him, and the girl and the Valemen were left alone as surely as if the little fellow had truly disappeared. They waited patiently, not speaking.

“Tell them how we met,” the Mole spoke suddenly from his concealment. “Tell them how it was.”

Damson turned obediently to the Valemen. “I was walking in one of the parks at night, just as the dusk was ending, the stars brightening in the sky. It was summer, the air warm and filled with the smell of flowers and new grass. I rested on a bench for a moment, and Mole appeared beside me. He had seen me perform my magic on the streets, hidden somewhere beneath them as he watched, and he asked me if I would do a trick especially for him. I did several. He asked me to come back the next night, and I did. I came back each night for a week, and then he took me underground and showed me his home and his family. We became friends.”

“Good friends, lovely Damson. The best of friends.” The Mole's face slipped back into view, easing from the shadows. The eyes were solemn. “I cannot refuse anything you ask of me. But I wish you would not ask this.”

“It is important, Mole.”

“You are more important,” the Mole replied shyly. “I am afraid for you.”

She reached over slowly and touched the back of his hand. “It will be all right.”

The Mole waited until she took her hand away, then quickly tucked his own under the table. He spoke reluctantly. “There are tunnels all through the rock beneath the palace of the Kings of Tyrsis. They connect with cellars and dungeons that lie forgotten. Some, one or two perhaps, open into the Pit.”

Damson nodded. “We need you to take us there.”

The Mole shivered. “Dark things—Shadowen—will be there. What if they find us? What will we do?”

Damson's eyes locked on Par. “This Valeman has use of magic as well, Mole. But it is not magic like mine that plays tricks and entertains, it is real magic. He is not afraid of the Shadowen. He will protect us.”

Par felt his stomach tighten at the words—words that made promises he knew deep down inside he might not be able to keep.

The Mole was studying him once more. His dark eyes blinked. “Very well. Tomorrow I will go into the tunnels and make certain they can still be traversed. Come back when it is night again, and if the way is open I will take you.”

“Thank you, Mole,” Damson said.

“Finish your tea,” the Mole said quietly, not looking at her.

They sat in silence in the company of the toy animals and did so.

It was still raining when they left the maze of underground tunnels and sewer channels and slipped back through the empty streets of the city. Damson led the way, surefooted in the mist and damp, a cat that didn't mind the wet. She returned the Valemen to the storage shed behind the gardening shop and left them there to get some sleep. She said she would return for them after midday. There were things that she needed to do first.

But Par and Coll didn't sleep. They kept watch instead, sitting at the windows and looking out into a curtain of fog that was filled with the movement of things that weren't there and thick with the reflected light of the coming day. It was almost morning by then, and the sky was brightening in the east. It was cold in the shed, and the brothers huddled in blankets and tried to put aside their discomfort and the disquieting thought of what lay ahead.

For a long time neither of them spoke. Finally Par, his impatience used up, said to his brother, “What are you thinking about?”

Coll took a moment to consider, then simply shook his head.

“Are you thinking about the Mole?”

Coll sighed. “Some.” He hunched himself within his blanket. “I should be worried about placing my life in the hands of a fellow who lives underground with the relics of other people's lives for possessions and toy animals for companions, but I'm not. I don't really know why that is. I guess it is because he doesn't seem any stranger than anyone else connected with what's happened since we left Varfleet. Certainly, he doesn't seem any crazier.”

Par didn't respond to that. There wasn't anything he could say that hadn't already been said. He knew his brother's feelings. He pulled his own blanket tight and let his eyes close against the movement of the fog. He wished the waiting was over and that it was time to get started. He hated the waiting.

“Why don't you go to sleep?” he heard Coll say.

“I can't,” he replied. His eyes slipped open again. “Why don't you?”

Coll shrugged. The movement seemed an effort. Coll was lost within
himself, struggling to maintain direction while mired in a steadily tightening morass of circumstances and events from which he knew he should extricate himself but could not.

“Coll, why don't you let me do this alone,” Par said suddenly, impulsively. His brother looked over. “I know we've already had this discussion; don't bother reminding me. But why don't you? There isn't any reason for you to go. I know what you think about what I'm doing. Maybe you're right. So stay here and wait for me.”

“No.”

“But why not? I can look out for myself.”

Coll stared. “As a matter of fact, you can't,” he said quietly. His rough features crinkled with disbelief. “I think that might be the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard you say.”

Par flushed angrily. “Just because …”

“There hasn't been a single moment during this entire expedition or trek or whatever you want to call it that you haven't needed help from someone.” The dark eyes narrowed. “Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying you were the only one. We've all needed help, needed each other— even Padishar Creel. That's the way life works.” One strong hand lifted and a finger jabbed Par roughly. “The thing is, everyone but you realizes and accepts it. But you keep trying to do everything on your own, trying to be the one who knows best, who has all the answers, recognizes all the options, and has some special insight the rest of us lack that allows you to decide what's best. You blind yourself to the truth. Do you know what, Par? The Mole, with his family of toy animals and his underground hideout— you're just like him. You're exactly the same. You create your own reality— it doesn't matter what the truth is or what anyone else thinks.”

He slipped his hand back into his blanket and pulled the covering tight again. “That's why I'm going. Because you need me to go. You need me to tell you the difference between the toy animals and the real ones.”

He turned away again, directing his gaze back out the rain-streaked window to where the night's fading shadows continued to play games in the mist.

Par's mouth tightened. His brother's face was infuriatingly calm. “I know the difference, Coll!” he snapped.

Coll shook his head. “No you don't. It's all the same to you. You decide whatever you want to decide and that's the end of the matter. That's the way it was with Allanon's ghost. That's the way it was with the charge he gave you to find the Sword of Shannara. That's the way it is now. Toy animals or real ones, the fact of what they are doesn't matter. What matters is how you perceive it.”