by Terry Brooks
“But something happened?”
“It was inevitable, I guess. We were far out in the forests of the Upper Anar, practicing changes while tethered and some distance apart from each other. She felt it was safe for me to try changing in rapid succession, and she wanted to test my control. I wasn’t sure, but she was so insistent about it, so certain. And I had come to rely on her judgment, thinking her better able to measure my progress than I was. After all, she had been right about everything else until then. She had monitored and controlled my efforts with such precise and careful steps forward that I had convinced myself I was close to cured.”
He shook his head. “The truth of the matter is, I will never be cured. Not entirely. It isn’t possible for me to ever be able to shape-shift safely and without fear of losing control. I was tethered to her when I discovered this. One minute I was changing effortlessly, from ground squirrel to shrike, Parsk wolf to moor cat, and she was urging me on—telling me to keep changing, to remember she was there for me, that she would bring me back again if I started to slip. I was doing everything she told me, and I was making the shifts without any problem. Not even a hint of one.
“Then all of a sudden—maybe on a whim, maybe because she truly believed I could do it, or maybe even because she wanted to experience it with me—she told me to try shifting into something imaginary, to become a creature I had never seen. I did it without thinking. I did it recklessly and foolishly. I didn’t even stop to consider the consequences. I felt something slip inside me, but it was too late to stop. I had changed into a huge, loathsome creature, and in doing so I lost control. I knew it instantly. I screamed to her—a call for help and at the same time a warning. My mind was changing with my body, filling with dark and terrible urges, so repulsive I could barely endure them. I tried to back away from them, but there was nowhere to go. Hunger and rage and lust…”
He broke off, lowering his head, tears leaking from his eyes. “I was despicable in those moments, and I begged her to release me. She refused. She said that she loved me, that she would never let me go. She told me to hang on, to bring myself under control and change back again, but I couldn’t manage it. I was thrashing inside my own body, fighting myself, maddened and terrified, and I needed her to get away from me. But she kept clinging on, desperately, and I could hear her screaming now—not at what she had felt me become, but at how it was affecting her. She was tethered to a monster, and she was finding out for the first time what it was like to be one.”
Leofur listened without interrupting. She tried to give away nothing of how this made her feel, but his agony and regret were so palpable it broke her heart. He was reliving those last moments with Sarnya so vividly—and struggling with the same guilt and loss he had felt back then.
“In the end,” he said, “I broke the tether myself; I was able to do that much, at least. It took everything I had, but I felt the tie snap apart with an audible crack that sent me spinning away into a mindless blackness and finally unconsciousness. When I woke again, I was back to myself. The monster I had created was gone. I didn’t know if she had done this by hanging on to me for so long, or if the untethering had done it. I still don’t know.
“I went back to find her. She was dead. Her eyes were open, and I could see the horror reflected in them. I could see from the way her face was contorted and her lips twisted that she had died from the shock of what had happened, and I imagine she died with the image of the monster I had become still fixed in her mind.”
Leofur reached for his hands, took them in her own, and squeezed gently. “I am so sorry. I cannot imagine what that must have been like.”
Imric’s lips tightened. “I relive it every day. I was responsible for what happened to Sarnya. I killed her. It was my fault.”
“I think you are taking too much on yourself. She was a Druid, Imric. She had Druid training and the use of magic, and she knew the danger she faced when she agreed to the tether. Just as I knew it. Yet even with all of that, she urged you to do something that was clearly risky and foolish. You might have contributed to her death, but she was the one who brought it about.”
“I can’t accept that. It makes me sound innocent of any wrongdoing.”
She gave him an angry, impatient look. “And tell me, what is the nature of your guilt, exactly? Are you guilty of being born a shape-shifter? Are you guilty of being subject to that magic’s unpredictable nature? Are you guilty of trying your best to find a way to live? Just like everyone else tries to live, coming to terms with their own demons and misfortunes?”
He shook his head slowly. “I am guilty of letting people get too close to me. First Sarnya, and now you. Because I am worried, Leofur, that our tethering will end as badly my first one did.”
“Listen to yourself. You are trying to find reasons to fail! You are losing heart just as we are on the verge of saving Chrys. Stop it! I am not Sarnya. I am nothing like her.” Somehow, she managed not to shout, but instead to keep her words calm and reasoned. “Look at me, Imric. I am an entirely different person. Sarnya’s mistakes and failings are not mine.”
She paused, then took the plunge. “And I do not feel the same way about you that she did.”
His smile was bitter and sad—a jagged crease that changed his features so abruptly it caused her to flinch. “I know that.” He took a deep steadying breath. “But it isn’t your feelings I am worried about. It’s mine.”
What? Leofur stared at him in shock.
He seemed to realize what he had said and got to his feet immediately, snatching up his backpack and pulling it on. Leofur sat where she was, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
“It’s time to go,” he announced as he stood waiting for her.
She stared at him a moment and then rose, as well. Without another word, he set out along the shoreline of the lake. His stride was firm and determined, as if he sought to distance himself from her. He did not look back.
It isn’t your feelings I am worried about? It’s mine.
He had just admitted he was worried about his own feelings. And why? Was he saying he was in love with her? Was that what he was implying?
She caught up with him quickly enough, but for a time she didn’t say anything. She was working it through, seeing clearly what she hadn’t seen before. This strange, taciturn, withdrawn man had just voiced something so unexpected that she could barely make herself take it in. This was a man who kept his feelings closely guarded and his emotional state tamped down. He was a man who was used to being alone, and she believed that to a large extent he had chosen this path quite deliberately.
Still, he had revealed himself to her, whether on purpose or in an unguarded moment, and now they needed to talk about it. He might feel there was nothing more to say, but she believed otherwise—and was no longer content to tell herself that it was improper to intrude.
She moved up next to him, keeping pace. “What did you just say to me?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t remember.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I was just talking. I might have said anything. Let it be.”
She grabbed his arm and pulled him about. “Look at me.”
His strange eyes fixed on her, his face an expressionless mask. He was trying to speak, but he couldn’t seem to get the words out.
“You’re afraid it’s how you feel about me—not how I feel about you—that puts me in danger. You think your feelings might impact my safety during the tether. It was the opposite when Sarnya died—she was the one clinging to you—but you think it doesn’t matter where the feelings originate, only that they are present and might compromise you in some way.”
She took a breath. “Are you worried that, if your control was compromised, you might hang on to me too long, not let me go? Drag me down with you as you dragged Sarnya?”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand. You can’t understand if you’re not me.”
“Try explaining it, anyway. Try making me und
erstand. We can’t just leave things where they are.”
“How else can we leave them? What else is there to say? I know the realities of my life—and yours. I’m not meant to be with anyone. Not now, and not ever. It will always be too dangerous. I am a dangerous person. A dangerous creature. I am only partly human, and sometimes I wonder if I am even that. And the tether only exacerbates this. How can I ever be sure what will happen to the person I am tethered to? How can either of us ever feel safe with the other?”
“We’ve done pretty well so far. I think we know what to expect. You had a terrible experience with Sarnya, but I’ve already told you several times I’m not like her, not given to the same impulses she was. And you’ve told me all along that either one of us can break the tether. So why are you assuming I won’t know what to do should the worst happen?”
Imric frowned. “Because…” And he trailed off, seeming at a loss for words.
“Because you love me?” Leofur persisted. “Is that it?”
“I only said what I did because I am afraid for you. I said it to clarify that your participation in the tethering wasn’t the cause for my fear—mine was. I couldn’t let you continue to tether to me without admitting to it.”
“But what you’ve said changes nothing. Haven’t you been paying attention? I’ve understood the risks right from the beginning, from the moment you explained them—from the first time you went off on your own after promising not to, breaking the link between us and leaving yourself exposed. You must think I am pretty weak to doubt me now.”
“I doubt myself, Leofur, not you. My feelings are complicating things to such a degree that I doubt my objectivity. I wonder how much judgment and common sense I can rely on when they’re needed. Don’t you see? I have become a risk to you that I never intended to become. It was bad enough being a shape-shifter with a decided lack of control. But now, feeling about you as I do, discovering that it’s there and I can’t make it go away…”
She shook her head. “How did this happen? When did you decide this? Are you sure about it? Maybe you’re…”
He shook her off. “Don’t treat me like I might be confused or muddle-headed. Or like I’m somehow unable to recognize the truth. I’ve known from the first time we tethered. I’ve been sure of it ever since…” He looked away from her. “But you’re partnered with Paxon Leah. You already have a life. You’re in love with someone else.”
He quit talking and wheeled away. “This is pointless. I wish I’d turned you away that first day and let you find someone else to come looking for your partner’s sister!”
There was real anger and regret in his voice now, and for a few moments Leofur didn’t know what else to say to him. She stared after him as he walked away a few steps and stood looking down at his feet.
When it appeared he had nothing further to say, she went over to him and put her hand on his back. “I’m sorry you feel this way, but I’m not sorry you came with me. Without you, I never would have found Chrys. I will owe you that for the rest of my life, and I will never forget your courage and your determination. Besides, I think coming with me was important to you. I will never accept that this was a mistake.”
He was quiet a moment, still not looking at her, his face turned away. “I don’t regret being given the chance to shape-shift again,” he said finally. “I didn’t realize how much I had missed it until you gave me the chance to get it back.”
She took hold of his arms and turned him around to face her. “Then let’s leave everything where it is, Imric. We’ll talk about it later. No more anger or pain or regret or guilt for now. For now, we have to remember why we’re here. We have to think about Chrysallin. Can you just think about her?”
He looked at her as if the effort actually hurt. “I can do whatever you need me to do. Except for one thing, Leofur Rai. I cannot change the way I feel. Don’t ask it of me. I am tired of pretending. I do love you. Even knowing it will come to nothing. Even knowing you don’t love me back.”
“Oh, Imric,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I wish I could give you that.”
The words came from her lips before she could think better of them—an admission of her own. She was surprised to hear herself speak them and even more surprised to realize she meant them.
Because she was admitting to herself, for the first time, that maybe she might love him, too. That she had bottled those feelings up and even denied them by pretending they were something else. That she had dismissed them as being nothing more than a response to the intensity of their situation and her own general unhappiness with her life.
But she wasn’t sure she could do so anymore, now that it was out there. And she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to.
—
When Arcannen reached the walls above the south gate and saw for the first time the number of warships ringing the Druid’s Keep, he turned immediately to Keratrix and said, “Let them wait. Meanwhile, come with me.”
There were already large numbers of Druid Guard manning the walls, readying for battle, bringing up defensive weapons to repel any attack. Not that Paranor required such things. The rumor—a rumor he knew to be true—was that the Keep had an infusion of ancient magic that made it capable of defending itself. No enemy had ever breached these walls through anything but subterfuge and betrayal.
In any case, the sorcerer had no intention of sticking around to find out. He was nothing if not practical, and he knew that now was the time for him to cut his losses and disappear. What he had come here for was to pillage the artifacts vault, and if he was able to manage that before the Federation attacked, he would have accomplished enough to pronounce his mission a success.
He waited until he was safely inside and out of sight before turning once more to Keratrix. “Listen closely. I have been keeping this to myself, but now I see it is impossible to do so any longer. The journey back to Paranor with Paxon and the others was harder on me than I have revealed. I was poisoned and injured internally during one of the fights in the Battlemound. As a result, I am much weakened—perhaps too much so to stand and fight with the others. I will try because I must, because it is expected of me—and, live or die, I will do what I can. But I will need your help.”
“Master, we have healers who are skilled…”
Arcannen quickly put a finger to the young man’s lips. “Shhh, shhh. There is no time for that now. Haste will help more. What I require lies in the artifacts vault, but I have lost all memory of how to open the vault. I keep thinking it is a temporary disability that will eventually subside, but perhaps it goes deeper than that.” He paused, giving the other a rueful smile. “I was hoping you could help me to get inside long enough to retrieve what we need to protect ourselves.”
Keratrix nodded at once. “Of course! I have memorized the codes that open the vault doors. In case you’ve forgotten, I do an inventory every other week. I know where everything can be found. We can retrieve whatever you wish.”
Arcannen smiled and clapped him on his shoulder. “Lead on then, young man. You have proved your worth this day!”
Keratrix set off eagerly, with Arcannen following. They went down through the tower to its base, and then farther down into the cellars underneath. Below, there were rooms that might once have been many things but now were locked and abandoned. On the third level down, they followed one corridor deep into a maze of others, the intense darkness lit only by a thin spray of werelight that Keratrix had summoned to his fingertips to guide them. Their footsteps echoed in the silence, and the darkness closed in behind them like a wall. If you became lost down here without light—or perhaps even with it, Arcannen thought—you might never get out. This was treacherous ground, so he made it a point to memorize the way back as they proceeded deeper in.
Finally, they reached the end of a hallway and a massive iron door with multiple locks, and bars fed by gears into holes bored into the stone of the Keep. Keratrix stopped, passed the werelight to Arcannen, and turned to the door. Slowly, delibera
tely, he began running through a litany of words and odd sounds, addressing the barrier in front of them as he did so. It seemed to take him forever to finish, but when he did the bars slid back, the locks released, and the huge door swung open to admit them.
An entry chamber awaited them, small and claustrophobic, and again Keratrix stopped Arcannen from proceeding farther. “Careful,” Keratrix cautioned. “You’ve forgotten the traps.”
Arcannen shook his head in a self-admonishing way and smiled. “It seems I have forgotten a lot of late.”
Again, the scribe began moving about, touching the wall in select places. Each time, Arcannen heard a click or snap or hiss from somewhere nearby as a trap was disabled. It took Keratrix a little longer than opening the door, but in the end he managed the task and beckoned the man he believed to be the Ard Rhys forward.
A section of the wall swung open and they walked into a sudden blaze of light. Here they found a cavernous room with dozens of smaller chambers opening off it like spokes on a wheel hub. Arcannen stood where he was for a moment, dazzled by the sight of what was arguably the most coveted and protected sanctuary in the Four Lands, amazed at how easy it had been to gain entry. Yet he knew that he never could have done so as anyone but Isaturin, and perhaps not even this disguise would have been enough if the threat of an attack did not loom just outside Paranor’s gates. Still, that he had been able to persuade Keratrix to allow him entry was nothing short of a miracle, and he intended to make the most of it.
“What is it you seek, Master?” the young man asked.
Arcannen shook his head. “I am considering what will best serve our order,” he answered, moving to the center of the room. “You say you inventory all the artifacts regularly? Then you must know where each one lies and what each one does.”
He was eager to begin choosing, a malevolent child in a room full of dangerous toys. He could barely contain himself. What should he take with him? What would best serve him in the years ahead? For a moment he simply cast about aimlessly, euphoric and enthralled. He was in the forbidden castle of the Druids. He had gained access to their most priceless and ancient magic. How could he begin to choose?
