by Terry Brooks
A short time later the door latch released and Eretria stepped through, carrying a tray of bread, honey, milk, and fruit. Brown limbs slipped from beneath a diaphanous white gown that swirled about the Rover girl like smoke. The dazzling smile flashed at the Valeman.
“Well rested, Wil Ohmsford?” She deposited the tray on his lap and winked. “Cephelo will speak with you now.”
She left without saying a word to Amberle. Wil glanced at the Elven girl when Eretria had gone and shrugged helplessly. Amberle’s smile was forced.
Minutes later, Cephelo appeared. He entered without knocking, his tall, lean frame stooping slightly as it passed through the entry. Dressed in black and wrapped in the cloak of forest green, he appeared just as he had when they had first observed him on the banks of the Mermidon. The wide-brimmed hat was cocked jauntily on his head, and he removed it with a flourish as he entered, a broad grin splitting his swarthy face.
“Ah, the Elflings, the Healer and his sister. We meet again.” He bowed. “Still looking for your horse?”
Wil smiled. “Not this time.”
The Rover looked down the length of his hooked nose at them. “No? Have you lost your way then? Arborlon, as I remember, lies north.”
“We have been to Arborlon and left again,” the Valeman replied, setting aside the tray.
“Come to Grimpen Ward.”
“Both of us, it seems.”
“Indeed.” The tall man seated himself opposite the two. “In my case, business takes me many places that I might not otherwise care to go. But what of yourself, Healer? What brings you to Grimpen Ward? Surely not the prospect of applying your art to the denizens of so shabby a village as this one.”
Wil hesitated a moment before responding. He was going to have to be very careful what he told Cephelo. He knew the man well enough by now to appreciate the fact that if the Rover were to discover anything that he might turn to his own advantage, he would be quick to do so.
“We have business of our own,” he replied carelessly.
The Rover pursed his lips. “You do not seem to be doing very well in its pursuit, Healer. Your throat would be cut by now if not for me.”
Wil wanted to laugh aloud. The old fox! He was not about to admit that Eretria had anything to do with saving them.
“We seem to be in your debt once again,” he offered.
Cephelo shrugged. “I was hasty in my judgment of you at the Tirfing; I let my concern for my people override my common sense. I blamed you for what happened when I should have thanked you for aiding. That has bothered me. Saving you now eases my sense of guilt.”
“I am gratified to learn that you feel this way.” Wil did not believe one word of it. “This has been a difficult time for my sister and me.”
“Difficult?” Cephelo’s dark face mirrored sudden concern. “Perhaps there is something more that I can do to aid you—something to be of service. If you would tell me what it is, exactly, that brings you to this most dangerous part of the country …?”
Here it comes, Wil thought. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Amberle frown in warning.
“I wish that it were within your power to help.” Wil did his best to sound sincere. “But I am afraid that it is not. What I need most is the guidance of someone familiar with the history of this valley, its marks, and its legends.”
Cephelo clapped his hands lightly. “Well, then, perhaps I can be of assistance after all. I have traveled the Wilderun many times.” He lifted a long finger to the side of his head. “I know something of its secrets.”
Perhaps, Wil thought. Perhaps not. He wants to know what we are doing here.
The Valeman shrugged. “I do not feel that we should impose further on your hospitality by involving you in our affairs. My sister and I can manage.”
The Rover’s face was expressionless. “Why not tell me what it is that brings you here—let me judge if the imposition is so great.”
Amberle’s hand closed tightly on Wil’s arm, but he ignored it, keeping his eyes locked on Cephelo’s. He knew that he was going to have to tell the Rover something.
“There is a sickness within the house of the Elessedils, rulers of the Elves.” He lowered his voice. “The King’s granddaughter is very ill. The medicine she needs is an extract from a root that can only be found here, within the Wilderun. I alone know that—I and my sister. We have come here in search of that root, for if we can find it and carry it to the Elven ruler, the reward will be great.”
He felt Amberle’s grip loosen abruptly. He did not dare to look at her face. Cephelo was silent for a moment before replying.
“Do you know where within the Wilderun this root can be found?”
The Valeman nodded. “There are books, ancient books of healing from the old world, that speak of the root and the name of its location. But it is a name long since forgotten, long since erased from the maps that serve the races now. I doubt that the name would mean anything to you.”
The Rover leaned forward. “Tell it to me anyway.”
“Safehold,” Wil declared, watching the other’s dark face. “The name is Safehold.”
Cephelo thought a moment, then shook his head. “You were right—the name means nothing. Still …” He paused deliberately, rocking back slightly as if deep in thought. “There is one who might know the name, one familiar with the old names of this valley. I could lead you to him, I suppose. Ah, but Healer, the Wilderun is very dangerous country—you know that yourself since you most certainly crossed through some small part of its forests to reach Grimpen Ward. The risk to my people and myself if we were to aid you in such a perilous search would be great.” He shrugged apologetically. “Besides, we have other commitments, other places to which we must travel, other business to which we must attend. Time is a precious thing to such as we. Surely you can appreciate that.”
“What is it that you are saying?” The Valeman demanded quietly.
“That without me, you will fail in your quest. That you need me; that I in turn wish to offer my help. But such help as you seek cannot be given without, ah … adequate recompense.”
Wil nodded slowly. “What recompense, Cephelo?”
The Rover’s eyes glittered. “The Stones you carry. The ones that hold the power.”
The Valeman shook his head. “They would be useless to you.”
“Would they? Is their secret so dark?” Cephelo’s eyes narrowed. “Do not suppose me a fool. You are no simple Healer. That much was obvious almost from the moment we first met. Still, it matters not to me who you are—only what you have. You have the power of the Stones and I wish it.”
“Their magic is Elven.” Wil forced himself to remain calm, hoping desperately that he had not lost control of the situation. “Only one of Elven blood can wield their power.”
“You lie badly, Healer,” the big man’s voice was ugly.
“He speaks the truth,” Amberle interjected quickly, her face frightened. “If not for the Stones, he would not have even attempted this search. You have no right to ask him to give them up to you.”
“I have the right to ask whatever I choose,” Cephelo snapped, brushing her words aside with a wave of his hand. “In any case, I believe neither of you.”
“Believe what you wish.” Wil’s voice was steady. “I will not give you the Stones.”
The two men stared wordlessly at each other for a moment, the Rover’s face hard and threatening. Yet there was fear there as well—fear generated by Cephelo’s vivid memory of the power locked within the Elfstones, power that Wil Ohmsford had mastered. With great effort he forced himself to smile.
“What will you give me then, Healer? Am I expected to do this service for nothing? Am I expected to risk lives and property without any form of recompense at all? There must be something of value that you can give me—something that has worth equal to that of the Stones you so stubbornly refuse to yield. What then? What will you give me?”
Wil tried desperately to come up with someth
ing, but there was absolutely nothing else he carried that was worth more than a few pennies. Yet just when he had decided that the situation was hopeless, Cephelo snapped his fingers sharply.
“I will make a bargain with you, Healer. You say that the Elven King will reward you if you bring to him the medicine that will cure his granddaughter. Very well. I will do what I can to help you learn something of this place you call Safehold. I will take you to one who might know the name. I will do that and nothing more. In exchange for this, you must give me half of whatever reward you receive from the Elven King. Half. Is it agreed?”
Wil thought it over a moment. A curious bargain, he decided. Rovers seldom, if ever, gave anything away without first getting something in return. What was Cephelo about?
“Are you saying that you will help me learn the location of Safehold …”
“If I can.”
“… but you will not come with me to find it?”
Cephelo shrugged. “I have no wish to risk my life unnecessarily. Finding the medicine and conveying it to the Elven King’s granddaughter is your problem. My part of the bargain is merely to help you on your way.” He paused. “Do not, however, presume that once gone you are therefore free of me. Any attempt to cheat me of what you owe would end very badly for you.”
The Valeman frowned. “How will you know whether or not I am successful if you do not come with me?”
Cephelo laughed. “Healer, I am a Rover—I will know! I will know all that happens to you, believe me.”
His smile was so wolfish that for an instant Wil was certain that there was another meaning to his words. Something was wrong; he could sense it. Yet they needed help from somewhere in finding their way through the Wilderun—help that would permit him to forgo any use of the Elfstones. If Cephelo were to give them that help, it might mean the difference between success and failure in finding the Bloodfire before the Demons found them.
“Is it agreed?” Cephelo asked again.
Wil shook his head. He would test the Rover. “One half is too much. I will give you a third.”
“A third!” Cephelo’s face darkened momentarily, then relaxed. “Very well. I am a reasonable man. A third.”
That had been entirely too easy, Wil thought. He glanced at Amberle, seeing in her eyes the same mistrust that flickered in his own. But the Elven girl said nothing. She was leaving the decision to him.
“Come, come, Elfling,” Cephelo pressed. “Do not be all day about it.”
The Valeman nodded. “All right. It is agreed.”
“Good.” The Rover stood up immediately. “We will leave at once since our business here is ended. But you are to remain within the wagon for a time. It would not do to have you seen again in Grimpen Ward. Once we are into the deep forest, you may come out.”
He smiled broadly, dipped the wide-brimmed hat in parting and passed back through the entry. The door closed softly behind him and locked. Wil and Amberle sat staring at each other.
“I don’t trust him,” Amberle whispered.
Wil nodded. “Not at all.”
Moments later, the wagon lurched forward and began to roll and their journey into the Wilderun was under way once more.
XXXVII
The old man hummed softly to himself as he sat in the cane-backed rocker and stared out into the darkening forest. Far to the west beyond the wall of trees that locked tightly about the clearing in which he sat, beyond the valley of the Wilderun and the mountains that ringed it, the sun slipped beneath the earth’s horizon and the day’s light faded into dusk. It was the old man’s favorite time of day, the midday heat cooling into evening shadow, the sunset coloring the far skyline crimson and purple, then deepening into blue night. From atop the ridge line, where the woodland trees broke apart enough to permit glimpses of sky, moon, and stars through a screen of limbs and trunks, the air smelled clean for a time, freed of the damp and mustiness that clung to it through the swelter of the day, and the leaves of the forest whispered in a soft, slow nighttime wind. It was as if, for those few moments, the Wilderun were like any other country and a man might look upon it as an old and intimate friend.
The old man looked often upon the valley that way, more now than at any other time of the day or night perhaps, but always with that same sense of deep and abiding loyalty. Few others could ever feel as he, but few others knew the valley as he had come to know it. Oh, it was treacherous—hard and filled with dangers to snare and destroy a man. There were creatures within the Wilderun the like of which could be found in no other place this side of a midnight campfire legend, told with hushed whispers and frightened looks. There was death here, death that came with the passing of every hour, harsh, cruel, and certain. It was a land of hunter and hunted, each living creature a bit of both, and the old man had seen the best and worst of each in the sixty years that he had made the valley his home.
He drummed his fingers on the rocker’s arms and thought back dreamily. It was sixty years since he had first come to the Wilderun—a long time, yet barely gone. This had been his home for all those years, and it was a home that a man could respect—not simply another place with houses and people all crowded close, safe, secure, and senselessly dull, but a place of solitude and depth, of challenge and heart, a place to which only a few would ever come because only those few would ever belong. A few like himself, he thought, and now only he remained of those who had once come into the valley. All the rest were gone, claimed by the wilderness, buried somewhere deep within her earth. Of course there were those fools that huddled like frightened dogs within the ragged shacks of Grimpen Ward, cheating and robbing each other and any other fool that might venture into their midst. But the valley was not theirs and never would be, for they had no understanding of what the valley was about nor any wish to learn. They might as well be locked within the closet of some castle for all it meant to any claim that they were its lords and ladies.
Crazy, they called him—those fools in Grimpen Ward. Crazy to live in this wilderness, an old man alone. He grinned crookedly at the thought. Madness peculiar to its owner, perhaps; but he would choose his own over theirs.
“Drifter,” he called gruffly, and the monstrous black dog that stretched at his feet came awake and rose, a giant animal that had the look of both wolf and bear, its massive body bristling with hair, its muzzle yawning wide.
“Hey, you.” The old man grunted, and the dog came over, dropping its great head onto its master’s lap, waiting for its ears to be scratched.
The old man obliged. Somewhere in the growing dark, a scream sounded, quick and piercing, to linger in the sudden stillness as a fading echo, then die. Drifter looked up quickly. The old man nodded. Swamp cat. A big one. Something had crossed its path and paid the price.
His gaze wandered idly, picking out familiar shapes and forms in the half-light. Behind him sat the hut in which he lived, a small but solid structure, built of logs and shingles caulked with mortar. A shed and well sat just back of the hut, and a fenced closure that held his mule, and a workbench and lumber. He liked to whittle and carve, liked it well enough that much of his day was spent shaping and honing the wood he took from the great trees about the clearing into odds and ends that it pleased him to look upon. Worthless, he supposed, to everyone but himself, but then he didn’t care much about anyone else, so that was all right. He saw little enough of people and little enough was more than enough, and he didn’t look to give them reasons to seek him out. Drifter was all the company he needed. And those worthless cats that wandered about looking for new places to sleep and table scraps, as if they were no better than common scavengers. And the mule, a dumb but dependable creature.
He stretched and rose. The sun was down and the night sky was laced with stars and moonlight. It was time to fix something to eat for himself and the dog. He looked momentarily toward the tripod and kettle which sat atop a small cooking fire several yards in front of him. Yesterday’s soup, and precious little of that—enough, maybe, for one more meal
.
He moved toward the fire, shaking his head. He was a smallish man, old and bent, his stick-thin frame clothed in a ragged shirt and half-pants. White hair ringed his bald head in a thin fringe of snow that ran down the length of a roundish jaw to a beard spotted with soot and bits of sawdust. Brown, wrinkled skin covered his tough old body like leather, and his eyes were barely visible through lids that pouched and drooped. He walked with a sort of hunching motion, as if he had just come awake and, finding his muscles cramped with sleep, was attempting to work out the stiffness.
He halted beside the kettle and stared down into it, trying to decide what he might do to improve the appeal of its contents. It was at that moment that he heard the approach of the horses and wagon, distant still, lost in the dark somewhere up the trail from his hut, winding uncertainly toward him. He turned and stared into the night, waiting. At his side, Drifter growled in an unfriendly manner, and the old man gave him a warning cuff. The minutes slipped away, and the sounds drew closer. Finally a line of shadows emerged from the dusk, winding down over the crest of the rise fronting the clearing—a single wagon with horses in trace and half a dozen riders in tow. The old man’s mood soured the moment he saw the wagon. He knew it well enough, knew it to be Rover, knew it to belong to that rogue Cephelo. He spat to one side with distaste and thought seriously about loosing Drifter on the bunch of them.
The riders and wagon halted just inside the fringes of the clearing. Cephelo’s dark form dismounted and came forward. When he reached the old man, the Rover’s wide-brimmed hat swept down in greeting.
