The Sorcerer's Daughter

by Terry Brooks

  Yes. What is the plan?

  We wait until twilight, then I rush the door, break it down, and overpower anything waiting inside. You follow me in, only a second or two behind, look immediately for Chrysallin, and try to free her.

  That’s your whole plan?

  I knew you would approve.

  It’s a terrible plan! What if Chrys isn’t where we can see her? What if the witch has set traps for just such an attempt? What if I have to fight when I don’t have a weapon?

  There was a long silence. Did you think this would be easy? Do you have a better plan? Because if you know of one, please tell me. I am happy to listen.

  All right. Change into something small and unnoticeable so you can have a look inside first. See if the witch took any of my weapons from the boy and kept them. If they are there, maybe I can reach them in case you need help. Be very sure you can tell where Chrys is so we don’t hurt her by mistake.

  He didn’t argue with her. Instead, he stripped off his clothes and began to change into a tiny finch, its back and wings dotted with white spots, its head and breast orange. Stay here. Wait for me.

  You don’t have to tell me that.

  He flew off, darting through the foliage, keeping close to tree limbs and leafy boughs, rising several times to vary his approach until he was perched on a branch that allowed him a peek through one of the front windows. He remained there for several seconds, and then darted to a different position with a different view. One time more he switched his location, flying around to the side of the cottage. Finally he returned, settling onto a branch next to her.

  Chrysallin is in a wooden crate near the back of the room. A little girl is speaking to her through the slats. There’s no one else in sight. The crate is locked, but I will smash it open when I go through the door so you can get to her.

  He paused. Both of your weapons are sitting on a table off to the left side of the door, maybe ten feet away.

  You’re sure there’s no one else there?

  No one in sight, and the doorway to the back of the house is open and darkened. I listened for sounds of life. I didn’t hear any. We have to hope the little girl is the witch and there isn’t anyone else. Are you ready?

  She nodded. I’m ready.

  Swiftly, he changed into a huge brindle-and-gray moor cat, flexing his limbs and claws as he settled into place. They were perhaps twenty yards from the front door, which faced out onto the swamp.

  His whiskered face turned toward her and his lantern eyes fixed on her. I don’t regret anything I’ve told you. I don’t regret how I feel about you. I won’t ever regret the time I’ve spent with you. Do you believe me?

  I do. I don’t regret any of it, either. I will never regret it.

  He hesitated and turned away. I will try to keep you safe. Ready?

  Ready.

  Then here we go.

  —

  The sun was directly over Paranor and the sky clear when the first of the flits flew overhead. Paxon and Miriya shrank back into the cover of the trees and waited for them to pass, exchanging a quick glance of shared understanding.

  “They saw us land,” Paxon confirmed. “We have to hurry.”

  They broke into a trot, moving swiftly toward the Keep. The flits might have landed, as well; they couldn’t be sure. Whatever the case, a shuttle from one of the transports—the kind that carried troops—was setting down close by, and they could hear the sound of ramps being lowered.

  “They’re going to hunt us,” Miriya said.

  Paxon’s expression tightened. “They can try.”

  It quickly became apparent they were going to try very hard. Paxon knew that if he and Miriya were trapped outside the walls of Paranor, they would lose any chance of reaching Arcannen. They had to find the underground tunnel and get into the Keep before the soldiers caught them. But he could already hear voices shouting to one another through the trees and knew that time was running out.

  “How far to the tunnel?” he asked Miriya. He was breathing heavily, not yet recovered from their ordeal in the Battlemound and Anar.

  She glanced over. “I can’t be sure. Keep running!”

  As if there was any other choice. He pushed on. More flits passed overhead, but there was no time to worry about them now. The Federation already knew approximately where they were. The soldiers on the ground would be on top of them shortly.

  He had barely completed the thought before the first of them appeared off to their right, breaking through heavy brush. “Over here!” the shouts went up.

  Miriya slowed and turned, bracing herself. “Get behind me!” she snapped to Paxon.

  Then her hands came up and blue flames exploded from her fingers to form a wall of fire between the Federation soldiers and themselves. It rose thirty feet into the trees, a huge barricade that engulfed everything around it. Paxon flinched away in shock, then Miriya was running again and he after her.

  “You set the forest on fire!” he shouted.

  Where the flames burned through the trees, screams of terror filled the air.

  Her laugh was harsh and sardonic. “Not really. It’s just an illusion. Come on, Paxon! Run!”

  They bolted through the trees ahead of those trying to catch them from behind and those trapped by the illusion off to their right. The trunks of the ancient forest flashed past them, an army of dark watchers. Paxon wondered how much longer he could keep up with Miriya, who seemed to possess inexhaustible amounts of energy.

  Finally she called back to him, “Just ahead! Hurry!”

  They entered a clearing of downed trees and large boulders, the debris of storms come and gone evident. She slowed and began casting about, hands sweeping left and right, seeking the entrance.

  “Hah!” she exclaimed in glee, pointing.

  Paxon couldn’t tell what she was pointing at, but she hurried over to a grassy hummock, fastened her fingers in the thick tufts, and pulled. A section of grasses and earth lifted away to reveal the hidden door. It was a hatch of heavy iron that looked all but impassable. Paxon could tell at once that it was sealed against entry, and there were no hinges, handles, or locks in evidence.

  Miriya knelt, summoning magic with deft gestures and words. What had seemed a door of iron disappeared entirely, leaving an open black hole into the earth.

  “Inside!” she snapped, gesturing.

  Already the voices were back again, this time coming from both sides. The Highlander went through the entrance quickly with Miriya right on his heels. Once they had begun to descend the set of stairs that waited, the iron door re-formed behind them and the ground quickly covered over the entry once more.

  Now in total darkness, Paxon waited for her to tell him what to do. Instead, light flared abruptly, and she appeared with two flameless torches in hand. She gave one to him and immediately moved into the tunnel beyond. “They won’t catch us now.”

  He was inclined to agree, but the difficulty in escaping the Federation was now supplanted by the difficulty in finding Arcannen. They couldn’t even be sure that he was still at Paranor. If he was gone, their chances of convincing the Federation of his role in the disaster were minimal. Worse, their chances of undoing whatever damange he had done were smaller still.

  They pressed on through the murky gloom, their torches providing just enough light to allow them to put one foot in front of the other. The tunnel was clearly very old. Roots had grown in through the earth, and parts of the ceiling had fallen away in large clumps. It could have been years since it had last been used; there was really no way of knowing.

  “There should be a door ahead that opens into Paranor’s cellars,” Miriya offered at one point before going silent again.

  When the tunnel took a sharp downward slope, she whispered back that they were about to pass under the walls. They descended a long way before the passage leveled off and continued on.

  “Who told you about this tunnel?” Paxon asked at one point.

  “Isaturin. The real Isaturin. Aphe
nglow Elessedil told him. I guess it is something that gets passed down. But you still need Druid magic to get inside.”

  They walked the rest of the way in silence until they reached another door, this one much bigger and much stronger than the one before. A huge, iron monster, it was clearly the door leading to the inside of the Keep and, as such, virtually impregnable. But again Miriya knew the magic that would open it, and they stepped into the interior of the Druid’s Well.

  This was not a place anyone wanted to be—not even a Druid. This was the dwelling place of the spirit that warded the Keep, protecting against attacks from outsiders. Paxon had heard from Aphenglow Elessedil about the last time the Federation had attempted a forcible entry. The Keep’s spirit had risen up in fury and smashed the intruding ships to pieces, sending them broken and helpless back to where they had come from. That the Federation vessels outside had come no closer than where they were now suggested that perhaps that event had not been entirely forgotten.

  Proceeding quietly, Paxon and Miriya climbed the circular stairway that led to the Keep’s ground level. If they moved quietly enough, perhaps they would not call attention to themselves and wake the thing that lived at the bottom of the well. You never wanted that to happen. No one wanted that.

  Once or twice, Aphenglow had told Paxon, members of the Druid order—mostly High Druids—had woken the creature deliberately to bring it to their aid. But the magic was not always discriminate and it was dangerous to be in its presence. Neither he nor Miriya wanted that now, so they stepped softly and did not talk.

  There was a slight stirring at one point, a rasping and a hiss from the darkness far below. But then the sounds lapsed back into silence, and there was nothing further.

  At the final level, a door opened into the main tower of the Keep. Paxon and Miriya passed through gratefully and secured the door behind them. They were in a lower hallway now, the smokeless lamps affixed to the walls at long intervals, the darkness pervasive in the spaces between.

  They stood where they were until Miriya beckoned to Paxon and started ahead. They had gone only a short distance when she abruptly stopped and stood, listening. Then she stepped backward and leaned into him, her voice low and urgent in his ear.

  “Someone’s coming!”

  Chrysallin Leah was listening with half an ear as the little girl ranted on through the slats of the wooden crate. She was locked away again, her captor having grown bored enough to want her out of sight if not out of hearing. Throughout this whole, interminable day, the little girl had been carrying on about Leofur and her awful fate, about the shape-shifter’s disappearance and disposing of the troublesome boy, all of it horrific and disgusting. Chrys kept imagining what it would feel like to get her hands around the little girl’s neck and squeeze. She kept picturing various scenarios of blood and exploding heads and shrieks of pain.

  Finally she blocked all of it away, afraid she was going to drive herself mad with such thinking. It was bad enough that she had to live with the possibility that Leofur was dead, even if she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe it. It was just too horrible to accept. But the little girl was so intent and eager to layer on image after image of what it must have been like for Leofur when the swamp things took her. She relished the telling of it, and while the Highland girl could rationally understand the other’s motivation in making her listen, emotionally she was enraged. She had tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to indicate that she wanted to talk about something else, but the little girl was having none of it. Today the game did not seem to matter to her. What mattered was making Chrys feel as terrible as possible, as if it were all her fault that any of this had happened, as if the inconvenience of having to dispose of Leofur was entirely on her head. Petulant, nasty, and derisive by turns, the little monster kept at her endlessly until finally she retreated to the far corner of the crate and sat there with her hands over her ears and her head lowered.

  “He’s coming for you, you realize! Arcannen Rai? He’ll be here in another day, perhaps sooner! He sent me word, little pet. You will be his plaything before you know it. Can you imagine what he will do to you? You will be sorry you ever left me! You will regret the way you behaved toward me—pretending to play along or refusing to play at all. You missed your chance, foolish child! I might have kept you from him if you were more compliant and willing to be my companion. But no! Not you. Not the precious Chrysallin Leah!”

  Chrys couldn’t shut out the words entirely, and the weight of their vindictiveness was clear. She found herself wondering suddenly if the witch was losing her mind entirely, if something had taken her over the edge of sanity and toppled her into a black hole of madness. Certainly she was raging mindlessly, attacking relentlessly, attempting to stamp out any trace of hope her captive might still harbor.

  “He wants to use you against your brother. He will do whatever he thinks necessary to make that happen! You are such a little fool. Why didn’t you ask me to keep you safe from him? Why didn’t you try a little harder to have fun with me?”

  I hate your stupid game! Chrys wanted to scream. That’s why!

  But she couldn’t use her voice, her vocal cords still paralyzed and her breath still weak and strangled when she tried to make any sound. She thought her voice might be starting to come back, just a little, but not yet enough to matter.

  It was maddening, and it drove her to the brink of despair. She was so utterly helpless, and she hated it. The witch had not as yet given her the nightly piece of root to chew, but she would do so soon. And what could she do about it this time? Could she swallow it once more and then throw it up again without the other knowing? Could she manage to regurgitate it when the witch was right there in the cottage with her? But she had to. She had no other choice. She only had another day or so before Arcannen arrived, and she must do whatever it took to escape him. When they opened the crate door, she would have one chance to destroy them both with her voice, and she would have to make the best of it.

  She was crying again now. The thought of Leofur dead was so heart wrenching she could barely hold herself together. But she was determined that if Leofur was gone, she would make sure the witch never did anything like this to anyone else again. She would put an end to it. She would put an end to her. She would use the wishsong against her the same way she had used it against Mischa, that other foul creature Arcannen had managed to dredge up out of the dark corners of humanity. No one would ever have to play the little girl’s horrid game again.

  Suddenly everything went silent. The little girl had stopped talking. She had frozen where she was, unmoving. The silence lengthened. Chrysallin moved to the front of the crate and peered out through the airhole into the room beyond. The little girl was standing with her head cocked, listening. Her nose twitched and a smile appeared on her lips.

  “Something’s creeping ’round my house; creeping, creeping like a mouse,” she whispered in a singsong voice.

  She went still again and turned to face the door. Her child’s features hardened and began to twist into an ugly expression.

  “Who’s out there?” she hissed softly. “I sense you there. I’ve smelled you before…”

  Then she changed in the blink of an eye into something so loathsome and repellent it was all Chrys could do to keep from gagging.

  An instant later the front door exploded inward, disintegrating into jagged pieces of wood and metal, and a giant moor cat catapulted past the witch, knocking her aside as its momentum carried it across the room to crash into Chrysallin’s crate and reduce it to splinters.

  —

  To Leofur, linked to Imric’s moor cat by the tether when it broke from hiding and raced for the cottage door, it felt as if she were a thing of grace and beauty, speed and power, huge muscles rippling beneath her strange mottled coat of gray, brindle, and silver, sleek body stretched out so close to the ground she seemed to be gliding across it. Leofur felt herself surging ahead, experiencing the sense of freedom it was giving Imric, the sensa
tions it was providing, finding her breath catching in her throat.

  Then she broke the connection and was back inside herself, charging after him, her eyes on the cottage and her mind racing as she sorted through the list of things she must do once she was inside.

  Clear the door. Reach my weapons. Run to Chrysallin. Or maybe to Imric?

  Faster! Faster! I’m too slow!

  She was falling behind. In his cat form, Imric was too swift for her. He was at the door and crashing through, the barrier simply disintegrating as he launched himself against it. Shouts and screams rose. Flashes of fiery light followed. A terrible battle was taking place, smashing furniture, walls, and windows in its fury. She bounded up the steps and toward the shattered entry but found it blocked by the moor cat and a thing composed of rags and ooze and rotting flesh that lacked either form or identity. She could not get past the combatants as they surged back and forth in front of the opening, tearing at each other, the witch as much an animal as Imric.

  A glimpse of what lay beyond showed the room in a shambles. Stacked against the far wall were the remains of the wooden crate with Chrysallin sprawled at their center, half buried and motionless.

  Seconds later the witch and the shape-shifter fell apart, the former rising up like a specter summoned from the Murk Sink’s deepest, darkest mud, tentacles and feelers lashing out with barbs and razored edges in an effort to keep its opponent at bay. Imric’s cat was slashed and bloodied, crouching in readiness for another attack, snarling and roaring as it feinted and lunged, claws raking at the wooden floor.

  “Shape-shifter, do you think yourself a match for me?” burbled the witch out of a mouth Leofur could not even see. “Do you think I am some feeble human? I see you for what you are, but you mistake me completely!”

  The moor cat made a sudden rush and was thrown back in a heap. It rose again instantly, but was further damaged and struggling.

  “Is it shape-shifting you love, creature of smoke and mist? Is it the changing that gives you your freedom, your power, your life? I will provide you with all you want! I will feed you such power that you will choke on the pleasure of it. Is that not your deepest desire? So be it, then!”