The Sorcerer's Daughter

by Terry Brooks

  “Where do you keep the crimson Elfstones?” he asked.

  When he glanced at Keratrix for his answer, he caught just a glimpse of discomfort or maybe even suspicion in the other’s eyes. The young man looked away quickly and moved toward the doorway. “Why don’t you begin looking about, and I will summon men to help you lift and carry…”

  Arcannen was on him in a flash, one hand fastened on his neck, the other on his arm. “Too late for that, I’m afraid.”

  He liked Keratrix. He was grateful for the help the young man had provided, even if he had been tricked into providing it. He might have found greater resistance in another man. He might have been questioned or challenged. Only because Keratrix was pledged to serve the Ard Rhys and considered it his paramount duty to do so had Arcannen been able to get this far.

  He liked this young man, indeed.

  So he killed him swiftly and painlessly by breaking his neck and then surveyed the room, wondering what he could find that would prove most useful.

  Much earlier that same morning, Paxon and Miriya rose from where they had spent the night near the merging of the Runne and the Mermidon Rivers, and set out to complete their journey back to Paranor. Much recovered from their ordeal, they were in possession of a little workman-like two-man lent to them by the dwarf Trond and his friends in return for their promise to return it as soon as possible. It was foggy as they followed the soaring cliffs of the Dragon’s Teeth west toward the Kennon Pass. With luck, they would reach home before the day was out, even in their clunky little craft, which was efficient enough, if awkward, and labored like a horse run ragged.

  But they had been inordinately lucky to get this far, so neither was complaining.

  Trond had been as good as his word. He had taken them to his village, fed and clothed them, and provided beds for the night. They had gone to sleep in the late afternoon and not come awake until midday of the following day. Once up and about, they discovered that the Dwarf had managed to secure the hard-used two-man they now flew—a feat he claimed had been a work of Dwarf magic. Grateful beyond words, but anxious to get back to Paranor, they had thanked him profusely and set out at once. By nightfall, their endurance and concentration drained once more, they had decided to rest at the juncture of the Mermidon and Runne Rivers until morning.

  There were questions that needed answering, of course, and as yet no answers to any of them.

  No one had seen Isaturin after Paxon and Miriya had tumbled off the ledge. No one had heard anything of anyone else seeking aid in getting to Paranor. No one had heard anything at all about what had taken place in Arishaig. Admittedly, Trond’s village was small and isolated, so word of what was happening in the rest of the world sometimes didn’t arrive for weeks, if ever. But that didn’t reassure either the Highlander or Miriya. The absence of news was not necessarily good.

  The two spent what remained of that first day talking over what they knew about the slaughter in the Assembly. On some points, they were in agreement. Arcannen was likely behind it; he was the one who would benefit most from disrupting any peace talks. Sure, there were ministers in the Coalition Council—fanatics against all magic and magic users—who did not favor an alliance with the Druids, but it seemed a stretch to think they would go this far to force a split.

  But if Arcannen was behind it, where had he been hiding during the attack? He couldn’t have dispatched and then controlled the Sleath from afar. Didn’t he have to be close enough to orchestrate the attack? Paxon wasn’t sure, but Miriya, with years of training in magic’s uses, had insisted that he had to be present to be certain only the Federation delegates were killed and to move the Sleath like a chessboard piece during the attack. The idea of pre-programming such a demon brought a snort of derision from her. Such sorcerous creatures couldn’t be controlled if simply set loose. Arcannen had to have been there.

  But if so, why hadn’t they been able to see him?

  There was the troubling fact of the Sleath’s merging with Karlin Ryl, as well. Why had it bothered? Why hadn’t it just fled once it had finished its work? And then, afterward, why had it reappeared during their battle with the plants in the Battlemound Lowlands? It had expended what remained of its strength defending the Druids, dying in the process. It had saved the lives of the Druids and their companions, but why would it do that?

  Neither of them had been able to come up with an answer the day before. It wasn’t until they were wending their way through the Kennon and Paxon found himself thinking about Fero Darz plunging to his death off the cliff ledge, wondering why Isaturin hadn’t been able to save him and hadn’t fallen himself, that he remembered something Aphenglow Elessedil had once told him. Something he hadn’t thought about in years.

  He looked over at Miriya with a confused expression on his face. “What?” she said.

  “Did it seem to you that Isaturin was not entirely himself once we fled Arishaig? You said yourself that he seemed less than concerned about Karlin. I thought he seemed distracted, not really present.”

  She stared. “Well, his behavior was odd at times. Almost cold.”

  “Then listen to this. We’ve already agreed that, for things to have happened in Arishaig the way they did, Arcannen must have been present. What if he was, but we just didn’t recognize him? Aphenglow once told me that Arcannen has a gift for disguise. He can make himself look like anyone. She told me he did it a few years ago in Arishaig when he pretended to be one of us and assassinated the Minister of Security Against Magic, a man named Fashton Caeil.”

  She nodded. “I don’t think I knew any of this.”

  “Not many people did. There was good reason not to make it public. Relations between the Druids and the Federation were already bad. But that isn’t what matters. What matters is who Arcannen was impersonating when he killed Caeil.”

  She stared at him. “Who?”

  Paxon did not respond, waiting on her.

  “Isaturin?” she guessed finally. “No! Is that even possible? Isaturin?”

  They were quiet for a long time after that, thinking it through.

  —

  They were nearing Paranor when Miriya spoke again. “If what you suspect is true,” she said, her voice rough and uneasy, “then Arcannen is inside the Druid’s Keep with no one but us the wiser.”

  Paxon nodded wordlessly, his eyes on the land ahead as they flew above the treetops of the forest surrounding their destination.

  “Someone will notice he isn’t entirely right,” she added after a moment or two. “Someone will suspect.”

  “We didn’t,” he said. “And we traveled with him for more than a week!”

  “But in the Keep he has Druids all around him…”

  “He will fit right in. Worse, he will be in a position of authority, meaning no one’s going to question him.” The Highlander glanced over and gave a dismissive shake of his head. “And any changes they might notice will likely be put down to the rigors of the journey he just survived.”

  Miriya gave a distressed grunt. “How did we let this happen? How could we have been so stupid? He was right there under our noses and not one of us realized it! We should have noticed something. We should have suspected. We are fools.”

  Paxon shrugged. “We are human. And, more to the point, Arcannen is a skilled wielder of magic with lots of practice at deceptions like this. He got past the entire Federation when he infiltrated their Coalition Council offices and killed Fashton Caeil. I guess we should have been thinking harder about the possibility that he would try something like this again.”

  He paused. “You have to wonder when the switch was made, though. At Arishaig? Even before? When did Arcannen become Isaturnin? And what happened to the real Isaturin?”

  “I’m more worried about how we expose him once we reach the Keep,” Miriya said. “We can’t just accuse him. He’s the Ard Rhys, after all. What if we’re wrong?”

  “What if we’re not?”

  She stared at him in dismay. “So what
do we do?”

  “Find him and surround him with enough Druids and Troll guards to stop him from escaping. Confront him. Someone in the Keep must possess a magic that will penetrate his disguise.” He paused. “Anyway, that’s not our biggest problem, Miriya.”

  She looked at him with fresh interest. “What is, then?”

  “That he will disappear before we even have a chance to confront him.”

  He squinted into the hazy sunlight, looking ahead to where the tallest of Paranor’s towers had just begun to come into view. Had he seen movement there, ships? He waited until they got closer, suddenly worried. Miriya was talking again but he wasn’t paying attention, his mind on what he was seeing in the distance, trying to make sense of it.

  “Paxon!” she snapped suddenly. “Have you heard a word I’ve been saying?”

  He pointed toward the Keep. “Look there. What do you see?”

  She did as he asked, peering ahead. “Airships,” she said finally. “But they’re not ours.” She hesitated. “Shades! They’re Federation warships!”

  “Looks like they’ve decided on a response to the loss of their delegation. We’d better find out exactly what’s happening—and quickly.”

  “We can’t fly straight in. We can’t let them see us. They’ll shoot us right out of the sky.” She was angry now, her face rigid.

  Paxon banked the two-man away from a direct approach, choosing to angle north, away from the south gates where it appeared the bulk of the fleet was anchored. He took a swift count of the vessels hovering before the Keep and came up with ten. But there were also flits circling the walls, and transports hovering to the south awaiting instructions.

  Paxon’s brow furrowed as he considered the situation. How long had they been there? He descended even lower, almost skimming the treetops as he flew toward the west walls. When they were nearing a point where any Federation scout could not help but see them, he dropped their airship through the trees and set her down in a small clearing.

  Together, he and Miriya climbed out and stood looking toward the Keep, which now sat about a mile distant.

  “What now?” she asked, almost as if she were ceding the decision to him.

  Paxon cocked an eyebrow. “Since we can’t enter Paranor through the gates, we have to get inside another way. I seem to remember something about an underground tunnel from Allanon’s time. A secret passage for just this sort of situation.”

  Miriya nodded thoughtfully. “I remember it, too. And I even know where it is.”

  —

  As she walked through the dank gloom of the Murk Sink, following just behind Imric, Leofur Rai found herself thinking how strange it would be to share her companion’s life. He was not an ordinary man. He was in many ways barely human. He could do things no other man could do, but doing them caused him constant doubt and fear. He risked himself each time he gave in to his compulsion—to the urgent genetic need with which he had been born. He must change to be complete, but he must also accept that the act was so dangerous, a rational man would have disdained to engage in it.

  A rational man, one not addicted to the act of shifting, could manage to live a reasonable life by not giving in to the urge. But this was clearly a need so powerful it dominated Imric’s every waking moment.

  So it was asking too much of Imric to forgo the demands of his blood legacy. After all, he had not been able to withstand the lure once she gave him the chance to explore it. He had needed only a catalyst that would give him an opportunity to reengage in the act he had spent ten long years forsaking, and she had provided it. She had offered him a reason to begin shape-shifting again. No, more than a reason. Hope. She had offered him at least a reasonable possibility of maintaining control over the effects of the changing through her.

  She felt a momentary surge of guilt. She was, in fact, the cause of his present dilemma. Without her to tether to, he would not have given in to the urgings of his body. Without her he would have stayed away from the dangers that shape-shifting presented.

  And now he had compromised himself and his needs by falling in love with her. Had she given him cause to think she would respond? She was committed to Paxon; she had pledged herself to a life partnership. Yet even knowing this was so, Imric had allowed himself to become entangled by his feelings for her.

  To become so entangled that he had been compelled to tell her of it. To bare his feelings in a way that completely contradicted his personality.

  And now, suddenly, she was in doubt of her own feelings. In the aftermath of his revelations and the rush of her own confusion, she was wondering if maybe she felt the same for him.

  Because where would all this lead if nothing between them changed?

  She could guess the answer clearly enough. They would rescue Chrysallin. It would not be accomplished as easily as the words suggested. They might not come out of the effort intact—or even come out of it alive, for that matter. And if they died, her questions were meaningless. But if they lived to return to Paranor, then she would go back to Paxon, and Imric would go back to his stables.

  Which meant he would go back to a life without shape-shifting because she would no longer be able to tether him. He would have to either ignore his body’s demands or shift on his own, alone and untethered. And if the latter, he would return to risking his life and courting madness.

  It was this latter choice she felt at that moment to be inevitable.

  She had not considered this before. She had not bothered to think that far ahead. But by doing so now, she saw the extent of the problem. When he said he understood she would never be with him and loving her was pointless, no matter the strength of his feelings, he was telling her something else, as well. Or perhaps admitting it to himself. He was saying that when she left him to go back to Paxon, he would be left with nothing. Without her and without shape-shifting, he would go back to the life he had been leading before meeting her. He would go back to a life that held no meaning for him.

  She wondered, too, what their parting would do to her. It was not as if it would leave her unscathed. It was clear that she was already changed from who and what she had been when they had started out on this journey. How was she to deal with that? What sort of resolution was possible?

  She walked without seeing, keeping pace but staying back, not wanting to talk to him, needing to be alone with her thoughts. All around her, the swamp was alive with watery splashes and birdcalls and scurrying movements. Snakes slithered in the underbrush and hung from the trees. Now and then, one appeared along the shoreline, with a ripple of water and a glimpse of a searching head. Rumbles sounded from distant places, indistinct and unidentifiable. Overhead, fog swirled in thick curtains, masking a sun that lingered somewhere out of view, its brilliant light a diffuse and vague glow that barely penetrated the pervasive gloom.

  She experienced a moment of despair. She was wandering in a world where she didn’t belong, and living a life she shouldn’t be living. It had all seemed so clear when she set out. Rescue Chrysallin. Save Paxon’s sister. Find her and bring her home for Paxon. Accomplish what she could while he was off fighting for his life and for those he was sworn to protect.

  Do something to make herself feel worthwhile. Because, in truth, she hadn’t felt that way for a long time.

  “Watch the snakes,” Imric said over his shoulder.

  A pile of them writhed off to one side in a watery depression, folding and unfolding sinuously. She stepped away hurriedly.

  “It’s not far now,” he added.

  The light was beginning to dim with night’s approach, but it was still at least an hour away. Leofur wished she had one of her flash rips—any diapson-crystal-powered weapon really—or anything other than the knife in her boot. A blade would be useless in a fight against the witch. She was unsure how Imric planned to take Chrysallin back, anyway. She thought he must have a plan, but she expected it mostly involved him undergoing a shift and her providing a distraction. The thought of it did not instill her with m
uch confidence.

  They had gone only a short distance farther when Imric signaled a halt. She crept up to where he knelt and bent close. “What is it?”

  He put a finger to his lips, then pulled her down next to him and put his lips against her ear. “Her cottage is just ahead, beyond that stand of cypress.”

  She glanced at a thick grove of weeping trees that formed a barrier at a bend in the lake’s shoreline.

  “We have to leave the path here and go into the trees. Stay close to me, and watch where you step.”

  He rose and started off, and she was quick to follow. They wove their way through stands of scrub trees and heavy stands of tall reeds and clumps of brush that formed small islands among the waterways and quicksand. She was aware of something big moving off to one side, disturbing the foliage as it passed, apparently uninterested in them. She tried to step exactly in Imric’s footsteps, but mostly she tried to keep from panicking.

  Ahead, the limbs and brush parted just enough to reveal the first faint details of a cottage nestled in the swamp’s watery cradle, set back from the shores of the lake and surrounded by ancient willows. Imric slowed again, then dropped into a crouch seconds later. He motioned for Leofur to do the same and pulled her close.

  Mouth to her ear again, he whispered, “We can’t go any farther until we’ve agreed on what happens next.”

  She shifted so that her mouth was now at his ear. “What does happen next, Imric?”

  He pulled away and gave her a look. Then, leaning back in, he said, “I’m going to tether with you so we can talk about this without speaking. I’m worried out voices will carry. Ready?”

  She nodded. Immediately she felt a pushing inside her head, a presence she recognized and allowed to enter.

  Can you hear me?