The Sorcerer's Daughter

by Terry Brooks

  He felt her hands tighten on his. “Don’t try to diminish him, please. It’s beneath you. He is much more than what the word suggests. He is a shape-shifter, and his abilities are the equal of your own. How I fell in love with him isn’t what matters. All that matters is that I feel strongly enough about him to want to leave you. That required more than a little self-examination and some very hard consideration of what I was giving up and why. I found it strange myself at first, but now I know I am doing the right thing. There are reasons for why this is so, and they are very good reasons. Reasons why I should be with him and not with you.”

  She paused, and he said, “Go ahead. Tell me. I want to hear everything. I want you to make me understand.”

  “I don’t know if that’s possible, Paxon. But I will try my best.” She sighed deeply. “It’s such a strange world we live in, where I can give you up for anyone else. You’ve been kind and generous to me. You’ve loved me and me only, and you’ve never lied to me or misled me.”

  She leaned toward him. “But you don’t need me, Paxon. You haven’t since those first few weeks when you came to me in Wayford. Once you became strong enough to return to Paranor to look after Chrys, that was the end of your need—your real need—for me. After that, I became your bedmate and your companion only. And I was starting to feel like my identity and my life were slipping away.

  “Then I met Imric, and he really does need me. Enough so that if I am not there, I think there is a real danger he might die. It is difficult to explain. There is a connection between us that transcends any ordinary bond. A mental connection called a tether binds us together when he shape-shifts so that he will not be lost to himself. Without me to steady him, he cannot do it safely. And if he cannot shape-shift, life means nothing to him. There is more to it, but that is the part you need to know. How we feel about each other is what matters. We are not complete without each other. We are not whole.”

  “But you and I complete each other, too,” he insisted.

  “No, Paxon, we don’t. We are companions and friends, but we do not complete each other. What I discovered about myself on my search for Chrys was that what I really require is a partner who needs me. I have missed being needed for some time now. It is not something you can give me. Promise what you like, but you can’t. For you, the Druid order and your position as the High Druid’s Blade will always come first. It is your calling in life, your mission. You are driven to be special, the one and only, the person others will always depend upon. I want someone who depends on me in that way. I’ve never had it—not with my father, not with those who have been my friends, and not with you. But Imric can give me that. And that’s why I am choosing him.”

  “You’ve already told Chrys, haven’t you?” Paxon said. “Even before telling me.”

  She nodded. “I’m sorry about that. But she was there while it was developing, and she watched it happen. I wasn’t ready to talk to you yet, but I needed to talk to someone. So I talked with her. She was very upset and sad, but she understood. She is a wonderful friend, and I will miss her greatly.”

  He closed his eyes against what that meant. “You’re leaving Paranor.” He could barely speak the words. They seemed to signify an irrevocable end to their life together, a decision made that could not be altered.

  “I have to. I don’t belong here. I haven’t belonged for a while now. Without you as my life partner, I have no place at all. We have talked about it, Imric and I. We want to start over somewhere new, somewhere neither of us is known. Somewhere he will be accepted for who and what he is, and where I will have my chance to do for him what I think I was never able to do for you.”

  She rose, releasing his hands. “I’ve told you what I came to tell you. I am sorry, Paxon. I will never forget you. I will always care for you. I wish you happiness and success, and I think you will find both. But try to be happy for me, as well, and don’t be angry with Imric. Just remember you and I were happy once and good for each other, too. Maybe we can be good now for other people.”

  She stepped away. “Good-bye, Highlander.”

  He rose and faced her. “I can’t accept this, you know. I will wait for you to come back.”

  She turned away. “Don’t. It would be pointless. I’m not coming back.”

  Then she was gone, and he was left feeling empty and broken, all thoughts but one driven from his mind.

  How could this have happened?

  —

  As Leofur walked away she was thinking of the things she hadn’t told him. Paxon was kind and understanding, but he didn’t need to know the entirety of what had gone into her decision to leave him. It wasn’t as if he could change her mind. She wasn’t the kind to make decisions that required revisiting. And she didn’t have to wonder if she had thought it all through quite thoroughly. She had done that, and more.

  Besides, he might not even be able to understand or accept what it had taken her so long to realize.

  So while she had made it plain that their partnering wasn’t working, in large part because she had become superfluous in the relationship, she had not talked about why she was so drawn to Imric. It required a complicated explanation, one she was not prepared to give. She felt a deep satisfaction in knowing that someone depended on her in a way that no one else ever would, and that this dependency was conceived not just in her ability to facilitate his shape-shifting but also in her clear understanding of what that gift meant to him. Because after experiencing what it felt like to be inside him when he changed, she now craved it as much as he did. It was a pleasure shared, a pleasure no one else could know, and it provided her with the gateway to the identity she had been searching for.

  He had once told her that she provided him with the strength necessary to buttress his weakness, that she was steady where he was mercurial, that she grounded him where he was prone to losing himself in his need for shifting. But she understood now that he provided strength to buttress a weakness in her, as well. He gave her the freedom to expand and grow where she had felt constrained and inert for so long. He had allowed her to escape the feeling that she was serving no purpose in her life. In their differences, they were more alike than she had realized, and it was this that had helped bring them together.

  She understood this now, but she did not think she could explain it to Paxon in a way that would allow him to accept it.

  She had not told him, either, that she believed her tethering with Imric worked in large part because they were so much alike. They came from similar backgrounds, from families that were far from normal and parents who were dead or absent entirely from an early age. As a result, they had grown up on their own. They had both been forced to become self-sufficient and directed; they had both learned early to rely on themselves and themselves only. What this meant to the tethering wasn’t immediately apparent to Leofur, not until after she had found Imric in the bower and stayed with him through that first night of his recovery. He had told her then that she had saved him simply through being there for him. She had no reason to doubt him, but it was a revelation. It demonstrated not only that she was strong enough to experience the most rigorous demands of sharing his ability to change shapes, but also that she was strong enough to steady him in situations where he was in danger of losing control. Even when there was a dark spell causing it, even when a witch had infused him with a magic designed to cause his shape-shifting to kill him.

  This meshing of personality and character was a large part of why she was drawn to him, why she felt so close when they were linked. It wasn’t quantifiable or even completely understandable. But it was there, and it was real. Who she was and how she had lived her life was why she and Imric loved each other.

  But Paxon didn’t need to know of this.

  Nor did he need to know that she had decided that one day she would bear Imric’s children. It wasn’t that she had talked openly about it with Imric. It was more of an unspoken promise. Right from the beginning of her agreement to be with him, she had unde
rstood that a family was important. For both of them—deprived of family at an early age, left parentless and rootless as they had grown—a stable family was both desirable and necessary. Yes, Leofur found hints of it in his words and looks and knew it was there.

  Nor did she tell Paxon where she would go or what she would do when she left him. She did not want him to know. She wanted their separation to be complete so each could begin a new life unencumbered by the old. Her decision to leave Paranor was easily made. Her choice of a new home was the Westland, where the prospects for creatures like Imric to lead normal lives were not limited by the prejudice and distrust so prevalent in much of the Southland. Leofur did not know exactly where in the Westland they would go, but it would be somewhere that would give them a reasonable chance at starting over, at fulfilling the promise of a shared love, and at experiencing the happiness that had been so long in coming.

  As she reached the elevated airship platform, she saw him standing by the two-man she had piloted back from the Murk Sink. His possessions were piled next to hers, and he bore the look of expectant resolve that had become so familiar. He smiled on seeing her, and she felt herself go warm in response.

  When she reached him, he took her in his arms and pressed her against him. “Is it settled?” he whispered in her ear.

  Her answer was wordless. She turned to face him and kissed him hard. “Time for us to go.”

  —

  Paxon spent most of the rest of the day trying to figure things out. He stayed in the gardens long after Leofur had gone, thinking it over, still stunned by the suddenness of her decision, still trying to make sense of it. Afterward, he walked the parapets, the hallways, the courtyards, and the forest beyond the Keep. He walked wherever his feet took him. He kept to himself, not stopping for those who tried to engage him in conversation, not able to talk to anyone feeling as he did. He skipped his meetings with his healers and his therapy. He did not eat. He could barely think of food.

  When twilight approached, he went to his room and shut himself in. He was still sitting there, the room growing dark around him, when a knock on his door signaled a visitor.

  “I can’t talk right now,” he said. “Please go away.”

  The door opened anyway and Miriya walked in.

  Actually, she hobbled in, her splinted leg giving her a stiff shuffling gait, her body swathed in bandages and her face still blackened and bruised. She was balancing a plate of food in one hand and using a staff to support herself with the other.

  “I carried this all the way from the dining hall. So don’t tell me to go away.”

  He was surprised to see her moving around. “I thought you were confined to bed. You are supposed to be healing.”

  “I thought the same of you. The difference between us is that when I’m in pain, I prefer to share it with someone.”

  The way she said it told him everything he needed to know. “You’ve heard. Who told you?”

  “Chrysallin. She can’t bring herself to talk to you about it yet, but I have fewer reservations. Here, eat some of this.”

  She hobbled over and set the plate in his lap. Then she sat down next to him. “That wasn’t a request, Paxon. It was an order.”

  He realized he was hungry and began to eat.

  There were already rumors going around that Miriya would be tapped as the next Ard Rhys. She sounded as if it were already an accomplished fact. “Practicing for your new position, are you?” he asked, aware that she was watching him. “Getting used to the idea of ordering people around?”

  She snorted. “Don’t believe everything you hear. I would make a terrible Ard Rhys. Too much sitting around, not enough action. I need to be out and about, not just sending others to do the work for me.”

  “Maybe your approach would be a welcome change. We’ve had leaders in the past who actually led by example, leaders who didn’t sit around letting others do things. Leaders who did things themselves.”

  “I’m doing something right now. I’m spending time with you. Why is it so dark in here?”

  She flicked her fingers at the smokeless lamps and they lit instantly. “I haven’t lost my touch,” she muttered.

  “So you’ve come to comfort me, have you?” Paxon said.

  “I’ve come to feed you. And drink with you.”

  She produced a black bottle from beneath her robes and set it between them. He studied it a moment and then picked it up, uncorked it, and drank deeply. The cool liquid burned on the way down to the pit of his stomach, and his eyes watered. “That isn’t ale.”

  “No, it isn’t. That’s pure sket, and hard to come by. Good for everything that ails you—especially heartbreak.”

  He nodded. “I hope so. I could use a little of that sort of healing.”

  Her features crinkled in an attempt at a smile, the mottled skin giving her a somewhat gruesome appearance. “There’s an old saying. If someone doesn’t want to be with you, then you probably don’t belong with them.”

  “Very insightful. Exactly who said that?”

  “I did. Just now. She loved you once, but now she doesn’t. If she doesn’t, she needs to let you go. Which she’s done. Now you need to let her go, too.”

  “Don’t think I’m not trying.”

  She paused. “Let’s you and I make a bargain. Let’s agree to spend this evening commiserating with each other. I will tell you why you are better off without Leofur Rai, and you will tell me how I will eventually get over losing Karlin. We will lie to each other, but we will do it in a kindly way. We will promise to be there for each other in the days to come. You and I, we’ve shared something that neither of us will likely ever share with anyone again. It binds us, that sharing. We should celebrate it.”

  She took the bottle from him and drank several long swallows. When she finished, she wiped her mouth gingerly with the back of her hand. “Here’s to the end of days gone past—some good, some not so good. And here’s to the beginning of new days.”

  She passed the bottle back, and he drank from it again.

  “Here’s to both,” he agreed, blinking as his eyes watered.

  “We’ll always be friends, Paxon,” she said. “Bound by bandages and bottles of sket, if nothing else.”

  He nodded his agreement. “Friends always.”

  They drank some more and were silent for a time.

  “Friends share secrets, you know,” Miriya said finally. “So you start. Tell me something about yourself. Something personal. I don’t really know much about you. Go on. Tell me something.”

  So he proceeded to talk about his early days in the Highlands and about Chrysallin and his mother, and then she told him about her childhood and how she had become a Druid. After a while their talk segued into tales of artifacts and magic hunting and from there into stories of unusual people they had met along the way. Somber tones and reluctant words gave way to laughter and jokes. The bottle of sket gradually emptied.

  Midnight came and went, and by sunrise they were still talking, and the new day was looking a little brighter.

  For Kelly & Michael

  By Terry Brooks

  SHANNARA

  SHANNARA

  First King of Shannara

  The Sword of Shannara

  The Elfstones of Shannara

  The Wishsong of Shannara

  THE HERITAGE OF SHANNARA

  The Scions of Shannara

  The Druid of Shannara

  The Elf Queen of Shannara

  The Talismans of Shannara

  THE VOYAGE OF THE JERLE SHANNARA

  Ilse Witch

  Antrax

  Morgawr

  HIGH DRUID OF SHANNARA

  Jarka Ruus

  Tanequil

  Straken

  THE DARK LEGACY OF SHANNARA

  Wards of Faerie

  Bloodfire Quest

  Witch Wraith

  THE DEFENDERS OF SHANNARA

  The High Druid’s Blade

  The Darkling Child


  The Sorcerer’s Daughter

  PRE-SHANNARA

  GENESIS OF SHANNARA

  Armageddon’s Children

  The Elves of Cintra

  The Gypsy Morph

  LEGENDS OF SHANNARA

  Bearers of the Black Staff

  The Measure of the Magic

  The World of Shannara

  THE MAGIC KINGDOM OF LANDOVER

  Magic Kingdom for Sale—Sold!

  The Black Unicorn

  Wizard at Large

  The Tangle Box

  Witches’ Brew

  A Princess of Landover

  THE WORD AND THE VOID

  Running with the Demon

  A Knight of the Word

  Angel Fire East

  Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  TERRY BROOKS has thrilled readers for decades with his powers of imagination and storytelling. He is the author of more than thirty books, most of which have been New York Times bestsellers. He lives with his wife, Judine, in the Pacific Northwest.

  shannara.com

  terrybrooks.net

  @officialbrooks

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