The Last Druid

by Terry Brooks

  When they stopped for the night, his guide told him to stay put, and vanished into the growing dark with no explanation. On his return, he carried the limp body of a small spiky creature that Drisker did not recognize. On closer inspection, the Druid saw it was a bird of some kind.

  “Food!” Weka Dart announced, and began plucking out the feathers.

  When it was reduced to meat and bones, the Ulk Bog glanced up, saw that Drisker was frowning at him, and used some of his drinking water to wash the bird clean. Drisker, in an effort to speed things along and overly anxious to eat, summoned flames to his fingertips using Druid magic so they could cook the bird. But the Ulk Bog was already biting into the carcass, and when he glanced over at what Drisker was attempting, he had an immediate fit.

  “No, no, no! Do you want to get us killed? Every Fury and Gormie and Dracha and whatever else might be out there hunting will be on top of us in minutes!” He tore off a leg and passed it over. “Use common sense, if you have any. Eat it this way.”

  “Raw?”

  Weka Dart rolled his eyes. “This is how you are supposed to eat it, Straken. This is why I caught it. Now stop arguing!”

  Drisker began gnawing on the leg and found the meat quite good, if a bit gamy. He ate what he was given, and a second helping besides. By the time he was finished, he thought maybe he had never tasted anything quite so good. And when both were sated, they sat together in the dark looking out at the gloom.

  “How safe are we here?” Drisker asked after a while.

  “Safe enough, so long as one of us keeps watch. I will watch first. Ulk Bogs don’t need much sleep. Too risky to sleep when you are smaller and weaker than almost everything else. But you can sleep. I will protect you.”

  Drisker didn’t argue the matter. He had already entrusted his life to this strange creature. He waited perhaps five minutes, then rolled into his frayed and torn travel cloak and was asleep within minutes.

  * * *

  —

  The following day, they crossed the river and angled southwest into a region of the Forbidding that Weka Dart called Huka Flats. It was desolate country—more so, even, than anything they had passed through so far. Much of it was dried-out flatland with dozens upon dozens of holes in the ground. After eyeing the holes for a bit, Drisker asked what they were.

  “Homes for Barkies,” his companion answered. When the Druid looked at him questioningly, he added, “Burrowing creatures about twice the size of your foot. Very shy—unless you make the mistake of getting too close to the entrances to their homes. Then they come out. Two, maybe three hundred at a time. Enough to pull you down and eat you while you are still alive. Not a pleasant experience. I have seen it happen. But walk where I walk and you’ll be safe enough.”

  They went on, Drisker proceeding more cautiously now, his eyes on the dark burrows surrounding them.

  “Why do you call them Barkies?” he asked, trying to steer his thoughts away from the images Weka Dart’s descriptive words had generated in his mind.

  “They bark at night. Sometimes they bark all night. You can hear them for miles. But Barkies feed in the daytime. Like now. They keep quiet when they’re hunting. They just lie in wait in their burrows.”

  Drisker couldn’t get out of there soon enough, but it still took them almost an hour to traverse the Barkie burrow village and get clear enough for the Druid to breathe freely again.

  The day passed without incident—if you didn’t count the times the Ulk Bog either had them hide or simply stand motionless until some form of danger passed by. Ahead, mountains appeared against a misty horizon. This was where they would find Kraal Reach, but it was late in the day and there didn’t seem to be any chance of reaching it before darkness.

  “You’ve come to take her away, haven’t you?” Weka Dart said suddenly, and Drisker could detect hints of both anger and sadness in his voice. Drisker hesitated, unsure of what to say. “If you’ve not come to be her mate,” the other continued, “then you must be here to take her away. Like before.”

  Like before? Then the Druid recalled that Grianne, when the Ard Rhys of the newly re-formed Druid order of Paranor, had been sent into the Forbidding by the rogue Druid Shadea a’Ru and would still be here if her nephew, Pen Ohmsford, hadn’t found a way to take her back to the Four Lands.

  “I’m here,” he said finally, “because I was sent. Unwillingly, I should add. Just like Grianne, both times she appeared.” He paused. “But I won’t lie. When I leave, she may choose to come with me.”

  “You will take her!”

  A firm accusation. Drisker shook his head. “I don’t have that power over her. She spoke to me while I was still in our old world. She told me she wants to come home. It is a part of the reason I am here.”

  “It is wrong of you to agree with her! She belongs here.”

  Drisker suddenly wondered if the Ulk Bog would rather lead him into danger than let him get anywhere near his beloved mistress.

  “Why don’t we wait and see what she has to say about it?” Drisker suggested, then paused. “Or do you intend to rid yourself of me on the way to reach her, in spite of what your queen has asked of you?”

  Weka Dart wheeled on him, his monkey-face a mask of fury, his spiky hair bristling everywhere from his head to his toes. “It doesn’t matter what I want! I am loyal to my queen! I would never betray her. Not for any reason. She is always to be respected and obeyed. Always!”

  He wheeled away again, stomping off.

  Well, that went well, Drisker thought.

  He followed the angry creature because he didn’t have any other choice, afraid he had created a divide between them he could not close. For the rest of the day, they walked in silence. The light dimmed swiftly, and the Ulk Bog found shelter for them in a cluster of rocks situated on a rise that allowed them to be protected on three sides.

  “We stay here tonight,” he declared without looking at Drisker. “It is the best we can do. You have magic. Maybe you can use it to protect us if we are threatened. Or is that too much to ask?”

  Then he was gone into the darkness to find dinner for them, returning almost immediately with something new and equally unfamiliar as last night’s offering. Whatever it was, he skinned and cleaned it, and they devoured it raw and in silence. The grayness of the day grew darker with nightfall. The sky clouded over, the air grew misty, and the world was blanketed in gloom and a sense of inevitable decay. Drisker stared out at it from their shelter and wondered how anything could manage to live here. Listening to Weka Dart speak of the Forbidding as if it were a real home—a place he chose to be and believed Grianne Ohmsford belonged in—was hard to accept. But then he hadn’t been born to it and lived in it all his life.

  They had finished their meal and were sitting together, still looking out at the night, when the Ulk Bog finally spoke again. “I was wrong to be so harsh,” he said in his rough voice. “I was being selfish.”

  Drisker nodded. “You want her to stay. I understand.”

  “If she leaves here, she will leave me behind. She did so before. She said I could not come with her, that I must stay where I belonged. But there is nothing here for me without her.”

  “Maybe things won’t turn out the way you think.”

  “They will. I can tell. She will leave me.”

  “If she thinks she needs to go, maybe you have to let her. You wouldn’t deny her that, would you? Don’t you care enough about her to want her to be where she chooses?”

  The Ulk Bog shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Drisker wanted to find something to say that might dispel the sense of inevitability the other was struggling with. “There is a good chance no one will be leaving,” he said at last. “I have no way of getting back, and if history is any judge, neither does she. We are both trapped in this world, and we may both have to stay here. So nothing is set
tled.”

  Weka Dart gave a slow nod but did not otherwise respond. He simply sat there, stubbornly silent, his gaze fixed on the darkness.

  Drisker felt very sleepy and decided to roll himself into his travel cloak and stretch out. Once he closed his eyes, he was asleep at once.

  * * *

  —

  When he woke the following morning, the world was awash in rain and gloom so thick it approximated night. The air had gone cold and the world silent, and it seemed as if everything surrounding him had died while he slept. He was aware of Weka Dart snoring close beside him, but the sound of the rain drowned out everything else.

  He was also suddenly in possession of a raging sore throat, a fever so hot he was sweating, and a body aching with such pain that he could not make himself rise. He tried to sit up and failed; he was so weak he could not move. He stared into the mistiness and rainfall and wondered how this had happened.

  He was sick, and his Druid instincts told him it was not a sickness he could do anything about.

  Seconds later, he tried again to rise, failed, and collapsed back into the folds of his travel cloak, unconscious.

  SIX

  Standing transfixed in the shady, quiet clearing, Tarsha Kaynin found herself face-to-face with the impossible.

  Not ten feet away stood the forest imp, Flinc.

  “Is it really you?” she managed, after she had recovered her wits.

  The little creature made a show of looking down at himself and running his hands over his body. “It appears so.”

  “But you were dead! Clizia Porse had you trapped in your home and you stayed behind to let me escape…” She trailed off helplessly. “I don’t understand!”

  The forest imp smiled. “There is nothing much to understand. I stayed to keep the witch from following you, and I was successful in my efforts. The witch and your brother trapped me in my home, so I used a little of the magic with which all forest imps are blessed and made her think I was dead. It was the easiest solution. There, Tarsha of the beautiful eyes. Are those tears I see?”

  Impulsively, Tarsha knelt down and hugged him. “I’m so happy to see you!”

  “Then I am happy, as well.”

  “But you didn’t try to let me know you were still alive? You didn’t communicate this with Drisker? You didn’t come looking for us?”

  Flinc shook his grizzled head, and his old man’s face took on a forlorn cast. “How could I? Drisker was trapped in Paranor, as I recall. And you left Emberen and the Westland. It seemed best to just wait until one of you returned. My kind doesn’t travel far beyond the borders of our forestland.”

  Tarsha’s face grew grave. “Things are very bad, Flinc. The boy who was with Clizia? My brother? She killed him.” Unbidden tears filled her eyes. “She tried to kill me, too. She believes me dead. And she did something to Drisker. He’s disappeared.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about him. If the chil’haen russ’hai is alive, disappeared or no, all will be well. And what of your companions? The highlander with the black blade and the Elf? What of them?”

  “They have left the Four Lands to try to stop the Skaar invasion. I am completely on my own. I came here for help, but I did not think to find you; that is something I never could have imagined!”

  She hugged him anew and was buried under a wave of relief and gratitude as she did so.

  “Stop, please,” the imp protested, struggling to free himself. “It was nothing special for me to fool the witch. She is not nearly so clever as she thinks. She thought it my intent to kill myself and take her and your brother with me, but for the Faerie reality is not a constant. It shifts and moves like the wind, and we ride its currents and turn them to our purposes.” He paused, eyes bright and questioning. “I could show you more, if you were to decide to stay with me. I have rebuilt my home and put it back the way it was. You would be safe there.”

  Tarsha shook her head in disbelief. As if she would risk another kidnapping, well intended or not. “You never change, do you, Flinc? I cannot stay with you. I must find Drisker and help him. And Clizia Porse has to be stopped.” She gave him a wry smile. “My kind is not so much inclined to be homebodies as your kind are. I am happy you are alive and well, but I have my own path to follow. Will you help me?”

  “Have you any doubt? Have I ever not helped you—or at least tried my best? You need only ask.”

  “All right.” She brushed back the strands of white-blond hair that had fallen over her face and wiped her eyes. “Here is what I need. I have to find Drisker, and I don’t know how to do that. I thought maybe if I found Drisker’s books of magic—the ones you took from me—I might find something in them that would help me. I know Drisker took them back from you, but where are they now?”

  Flinc seemed surprised. “This is all the help you require? Such an easy task! Come with me.”

  He turned toward his tunnel entry and invited her to follow. The trapdoor was back in place and the tunnel lighted and clean. When they reached the entry to his underground lair, she found the heavy door there as before, looking very much as if it had never been damaged. Once inside, she found almost everything put back exactly the way it had been. There was no sign of the damage inflicted by Clizia, and no evidence of whatever had happened in the ensuing struggle.

  Tarsha moved over to the little table and sat in one of the two chairs. “This is real magic,” she offered, gesturing to his rehabilitated home.

  Flinc looked pleased. “I like keeping everything neat and tidy. I lost a few treasures, but most I was able to save. Would you like a cup of tea?”

  She gave him a look. “That depends on what you intend to put in the tea. I wouldn’t like to think you hadn’t learned your lesson.”

  “Oh, no, it will be ordinary tea. You have my promise, lovely Tarsha. Only tea, and nothing more.”

  So she accepted the offer, and while he brewed the tea, she sat pondering the fact of his continued existence. She had been so sure his life had been snuffed out, and yet here he was, much as he always had been. It gave her hope that not all of Clizia’s schemes were successful. That, under the right circumstances, Clizia could be defeated.

  When the tea was ready, Flinc brought it to the table with two cups and poured it in front of her, making a point of tasting it first so that she would not be worried about his intentions.

  “I am sorry for what I did,” he said quietly, taking his seat. “I apologize. I do not want you to hate me. I value your friendship.”

  “You have it,” she replied. “We will always be friends.” She sipped her tea and let the warmth settle inside her. “So you can help me find Drisker? You have a way?”

  “Perhaps.”

  He finished his tea and carefully poured himself another cup. When he gave her a questioning look, she nodded her acquiescence and he refilled hers, as well. Then he sat back and looked at the ceiling for a moment.

  “I was very bad a while back. I brought you here under false pretenses because I wanted to keep you for my own. There is no kinder way of putting it. No, don’t say anything just yet.” He motioned for her to stop as she tried to object to his characterization of what he had done. “Just let me finish. I helped to save you after you fled the Druid’s burning home to hide in the deep woods, but then I made several bad decisions. I took you for myself and hid you from the russ’hai. After lying to him—to my friend who trusted me—about your fate, I returned his books of magic to him and claimed it was I who had saved them. But he is a Druid, and Druids are not easily fooled. He saw through me and had me bring him here and return you safely. He told me in no uncertain terms what would happen if I ever attempted such trickery again.”

  He paused. “And then he did something extraordinary. He came back the following day carrying the books of magic and asked if I would look out for them. He said he was going to go away and did not know for
how long. He was worried that something would happen to the books if they were left unprotected. This was before his house was attacked and burned, before all the trouble with the witch began. But Druids are often prescient, and it was so here, because eventually the witch did come looking for the books.”

  “But she didn’t find them.”

  He shook his head. “She did not.”

  “And you still have them?”

  “Indeed. Would you like to see them?

  She gave him a relieved smile. “Very much.”

  * * *

  —

  They spent the remainder of the day poring over the books, each taking one as both were able to read the old Elfish language in which they were written. For the forest imp, it was just another language of the people of his time, and so entirely familiar. For Tarsha, reading the language was possible because of her wishsong magic, which allowed for an immediate translation of any written language into her own.

  Still, it was slow going. The language was archaic and filled with words that lacked any meaningful translation, so she was forced to constantly ask Flinc for help. As well, each book was long, and the writing was small and cramped. Much of it could be skipped over, but not too hastily, because small references to the relevant magics could be missed.

  By day’s end, they were halfway through, and Tarsha accepted the forest imp’s invitation to spend the night so they could finish their work on the following day. She was gradually growing less concerned that he might try to keep her there permanently. All of his efforts seemed directed solely toward helping her find a way to either reach out to Drisker, wherever he was, or at least discover his location. She remembered Drisker’s ability to appear to her as an astral projection when he was trapped in Paranor, and she kept hoping she might find a way to make that happen here. But she had no way of knowing how Drisker had managed it so that she might go to him.