The Heritage of Shannara (60 page)

Where he wanted them was at each end of the corridor, listening for the sound of anything that might approach. It was agreed that Coll would remain where he was. Par and Damson went on with the Mole to the cor-ridor's far end. There, after a reassuring nod, the Mole slipped past them through the door and was gone.

The Valeman and the girl sat across from each other, close against the door. Par glanced back down the dimly lighted corridor to make certain that Coll was in sight. His brother's rough face lifted briefly, and Par gave a cursory wave. Coll waved back.

They sat in silence then, waiting. The minutes passed and the Mole did not return.

Par grew uneasy. He edged closer to Damson. “Do you think he is all right?” he asked in a whisper.

She nodded without speaking.

Par sat back again, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “I hate waiting like this.”

She made no response. Her head tilted back against the wall and her eyes closed. She remained like that for a long time. Par thought she might be sleeping. He looked down the corridor again at Coll, found him exactly as he had left him, and turned back to Damson. Her eyes were open, and she was looking at him.

“Would you like me to tell you something about myself that no one else knows?” she asked quietly.

He studied her face wordlessly—her fine, even features, so intense now, her emerald eyes and pale skin shadowed under the sweep of her red hair. He found her beautiful and enigmatic, and he wanted to know everything about her.

“Yes,” he replied.

She moved over until their shoulders were touching. She glanced at him briefly, then looked away. He waited.

“When you tell someone a secret about yourself, it is like giving a part of yourself away,” she said. “It is a gift, but it is worth much more than something you buy. I don't tell many people things about myself. I think it is because I have never had much besides myself, and I don't want to give what little I have away.”

She looked down and her hair spilled forward, veiling her face so that he couldn't see it clearly. “But I want to give something to you. I feel close to you. I have from the very beginning, from that first day in the park. Maybe it is because we have the magic in common—we share that. Maybe that is what makes me feel we're alike. Your magic is different from mine, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that using the magic is how we live. It is what we are. Magic gives us our identity.”

She paused, and he thought she might be waiting for a response, so he nodded. He could not tell if she saw the nod or not.

She sighed. “Well, I like you, Elf-boy. You are stubborn and determined, and sometimes you don't take notice of anything or anyone around you—only of yourself. But I am like that, too. Maybe that is how we keep ourselves from becoming exactly like everyone else. Maybe it is how we survive.”

She paused, then faced him. “I was thinking that if I were to die, I would want to leave something of myself with you, something that only you would have. Something special.”

Par started to protest, but she put her fingers quickly against his mouth. “Just let me finish. I am not saying that I think I will die, but it is surely possible. So perhaps telling you this secret will protect me against it, like a talisman, and keep me safe from harm. Do you see?”

His mouth tightened and she took her fingers away. “Do you remember when I first told you about myself, that night you escaped from the Federation watch after the others were captured? I was trying to convince
you that I was not your betrayer. We told ourselves some things about each other. You told me about the magic, about how it worked. Do you remember?”

He nodded. “You told me that you were orphaned when you were eight, that the Federation was responsible.”

She drew her knees up like a child. “I told you that my family died in a fire set by Federation Seekers after it was discovered that my father was supplying weapons to the Movement. I told you a street magician took me in shortly after and that is how I learned my trade.”

She took a deep breath and shook her head slowly. “What I told you was not entirely true. My father didn't die in the fire. He escaped. With me. It was my father who raised me, not an aunt, not a street magician. I grew up with street magicians and that is how I learned my trade, but it was my father who looked after me. It is my father who looks after me still.”

Her voice shook. “My father is Padishar Creel.”

Par stared in wonderment. “Padishar Creel is your father?”

Her eyes never left him. “No one knows but you. It is safer that way. If the Federation found out who I was, they would use me to get to him. Par, what you needed to know that night when I told you about my childhood was that I could never betray anyone after the way my family was betrayed to the Federation. That much was true. That is why my father, Padishar Creel, is so furious that there might be a traitor among his own men. He can never forget what happened to my mother, brother, and sister. The possibility of losing anyone close to him again because of someone's treachery terrifies him.”

She paused, studying him intently. “I promised never to tell anyone who I really was, but I am breaking that promise for you. I want you to know. It is something I can give you that will belong only to you.”

She smiled then, and some of the tension drained out of him. “Damson,” he said, and he found himself smiling back at her. “Nothing had better happen to you. If it does, it will be my fault for talking you into bringing me down here. How will I face Padishar, then?” His voice was a soft whisper of laughter. “I wouldn't be able to go within a hundred miles of him!”

She started laughing as well, shaking soundlessly at the thought, and she shoved him as if they were children at play. Then she reached over and hugged herself against him. He let her hold him without responding for a moment, his eyes straying to where Coll sat, a vague shadow at the other end of the hall. But his brother wasn't looking. There had been friends and traitors mixed up in this enterprise from the beginning, and it had been all but impossible to tell which was which. Except for Coll. And now Damson.

He put his arms around her and hugged her back.

Moments later, the Mole returned. He came upon them so quietly that they didn't even know he was there until the door began to open against them. Par released Damson and jumped to his feet, the blade of his long
knife flashing free. The Mole peeked through the door and then ducked hurriedly out of sight again. Damson grabbed Par's arm. “Mole!” she whispered. “It's all right!”

The Mole's roundish face eased back into view. Upon seeing that the weapon had been put away, he came all the way through. Coll was already hastening down the corridor. When he joined them, the Mole said, calm again, “The catwalk is clear and will stay that way if we hurry. But be very quiet, now.”

They slipped from the corridor and found themselves on a balcony that encircled a vast, empty rotunda. They moved quickly along it, passing scores of closed, latched doors and shadowed alcoves. Halfway around, the Mole led them into a hall and down its length to a set of iron-barred doors that opened out over the main courtyard of the palace. A catwalk ran across the drop to a massive wall. The courtyard had once been a maze of gardens and winding pathways; now there were only crumbling flagstones and bare earth. Beyond the wall lay the dark smudge of the Pit.

The Mole beckoned anxiously. They stepped onto the catwalk, feeling it sway slightly beneath their combined weight, hearing it creak in protest. The wind blew in quick gusts, and the sound it made as it rushed over the bare stone walls and across the empty courtyard was a low, sad moan. Weeds whipped and shuddered below them and debris scattered about the court, careening from wall to wall. There was no sign of life, no movement in the shadows and murk, no Shadowen in sight.

They crossed the catwalk quickly, once they were upon it, ignoring the creak and groan of its iron stays. They kept their feet moving, their hands on the railing, and their eyes focused carefully ahead, watching the palace wall draw closer. When the crossing was completed they stepped hurriedly onto the battlement, each reaching back to help the next person, grateful to be done.

The Mole took them into a stairwell where they found a fresh set of steps winding downward into blackness. Using the light of the stones Damson had supplied, they descended silently. They were close now; the stone of the wall was all that separated them from the Pit. Par's excitement sent the blood pumping through him, a pounding in his ears, and his nerve endings tightened.

Just a few more minutes …

At the bottom of the stairwell, there was a passageway that ended at a weathered, ironbound wooden door. The Mole walked to the door and stopped. When he turned back to face them, Par knew at once what lay beyond.

“Thank you, Mole,” he said softly.

“Yes, thank you,” echoed Damson.

The Mole blinked shyly. Then he said, “You can look through here.”

He reached up and carefully pulled back a tiny shutter that revealed a slit in the wood. Par stepped forward and peered out.

The floor of the Pit stretched away before him, a vast, fog-bound
wilderness of trees and rock, a bottomland that was strewn with decaying logs and tangled brush, a darkness in which shadows moved and shapes formed and faded again like wraiths. The wreckage of the Bridge of Sendic lay just to the right and disappeared into the gray haze.

Par squinted into the murk a moment longer. There was no sign of the vault that held the Sword of Shannara.

But he had seen it, right there, just beyond the wall of the palace. The magic of the wishsong revealed it. It was out there. He could feel its presence like a living thing.

He let Damson take a look, then Coll. When Coll stepped back, the three of them stood facing one another.

Par slipped out of his cloak. “Wait for me here. Keep watch for the Shadowen.”

“Keep watch for them yourself,” Coll said bluntly, shrugging off his own cloak. “I'm going with you.”

“I'm going, too,” said Damson.

But Coll blocked her way instantly. “No, you're not. Only one of us can go besides Par. Look about you, Damson. Look at where we are. We're in a box, a trap. There is no way out of the Pit except through this door and no way out of the palace except back up the stairs and across the catwalk. The Mole can watch the catwalk, but he can't watch this door at the same time. You have to do that.”

Damson started to object, but Coll cut her short. “Don't argue, Damson. You know I'm right. I've listened to you when I should; this time you listen to me.”

“It doesn't matter who listens to whom. I don't want either of you going,” insisted Par sharply.

Coll ignored him, shifting his short sword in his belt until it was in front of him. “You don't have any choice.”

“Why shouldn't I be the one to go?” Damson demanded angrily.

“Because he's my brother!” Coll's voice cracked like a whip, and his rough features were hard. But when he spoke next, his voice was strangely soft. “It has to be me; it's why I came in the first place. It's why I'm here at all.”

Damson went still, frozen and voiceless. Her gaze shifted. “All right,” she agreed, but her mouth was tight and angry as she said it. She turned away. “Mole, watch the catwalk.”

The little fellow was glancing at each of them in turn, a mix of uncertainty and bewilderment in his bright eyes. “Yes, lovely Damson,” he murmured and disappeared up the stairs.

Par started to say something more, but Coll took him by the shoulders and pushed him back up against the weathered door. Their eyes met and locked.

“Let's not waste any more time arguing about this, huh?” Coll said. “Let's just get it over with. You and me.”

Par tried to twist free, but Coll's big hands were like iron clamps. He
sagged back, frustrated. Coll released him. “Par,” he said, and the words were almost a plea. “I spoke the truth. I have to go.”

They faced each other in silence. Par found himself thinking of what they had come through to reach this point, of the hardships they had endured. He wanted to tell Coll that it all meant something, that he loved him, that he was frightened for him now. He wanted to remind his brother about his duck feet, to warn him that duck feet were too big to sneak around in. He thought he might scream.

But, instead, he said simply, “I know.”

Then he moved to the heavy, weathered door, released its fastenings, and pulled on its worn handle. The door swung open, and the half-light and fog, the rancid smells and cloying chill, the hiss of swamp sounds, and the high, distant call of a solitary bird rushed in.

Par looked back at Damson Rhee. She nodded. That she would wait? That she understood? He didn't know.

With Coll beside him, he stepped out into the Pit.

W
here was Teel? Morgan Leah knelt hurriedly beside Steff, touched his face, and felt the chill of his friend's skin through his fingers. Impulsively, he put his hands on Steff 's shoulders and gripped him, but Steff did not seem to feel it. Morgan took his hands away and rocked back on his heels. His eyes scanned the darkness about him, and shivered with something more than the cold. The question repeated itself in his mind, racing from corner to corner as if trying to hide, a dark whisper.