by Terry Brooks
Par was aware suddenly of how much he loved his brother.
“Are you coming with me, Coll?” he asked then. “To the Hadeshorn?”
Coll looked at him and blinked. “Isn’t it odd,” he replied, “that you and Walker and even Wren have the dreams and I don’t, that all of you are mentioned in them, but never me, and that all of you are called, but not me?” There was no rancor in his voice, only puzzlement. “Why do you think that is? We’ve never talked about it, you and I, have we? Not once. I think we have both been very careful to avoid talking about it.”
Par stared at him and didn’t know what to say. Coll saw his discomfort and smiled. “Awkward, isn’t it? Don’t look so miserable, Par. It isn’t as if the matter is any fault of yours.” He leaned close. “Maybe it has something to do with the magic—something none of us knows yet. Maybe that’s it.”
Par shook his head and sighed. “I’d be lying if I said that the whole business of me having dreams and you not having them doesn’t make me very uncomfortable. I don’t know what to say. I keep expecting you to involve yourself in something that doesn’t really concern you. I shouldn’t even ask—but I guess I can’t help it. You’re my brother, and I want you with me.”
Coll reached out and put a hand on Par’s shoulder. His smile was warm. “Now and then, Par, you do manage to say the right thing.” He tightened his grip. “I go where you go. That’s the way it is with us. I’m not saying I always agree with the way you reason things out, but that doesn’t change how I feel about you. So if you believe you must go to the Hadeshorn to resolve this matter of the dreams, then I am going with you.”
Par put his arms around his brother and hugged him, thinking of all the times Coll had stood by him when he was asked, warmed by the feeling it gave him to know that Coll would be with him again now. “I knew I could depend on you,” was all he said.
It was late afternoon by the time they started back. They had intended to return earlier, but had become preoccupied with talking about the dreams and Allanon and had wandered all the way to the east wall of the valley before realizing how late it had become. Now, with the sun already inching toward the rim of the western horizon, they began to retrace their steps.
“It looks as if we might get our feet wet,” Coll announced as they worked their way back through the trees.
Par glanced skyward. A mass of heavy rain clouds had appeared at the northern edge of the valley, darkening the whole of the skyline. The sun was already beginning to disappear, enveloped in the growing darkness. The air was warm and sticky, and the forest was hushed.
They made their way more quickly now, anxious to avoid a drenching. A stiff breeze sprang up, heralding the approach of the storm, whipping the leafy branches of the trees about them in frantic dances. The temperature began to drop, and the forest grew dark and shadowed.
Par muttered to himself as he felt a flurry of scattered raindrops strike his face. It was bad enough that they were out there looking for someone who wasn’t about to be found in the first place. Now they were going to get soaked for their efforts.
Then he saw something move in the trees.
He blinked and looked again. This time he didn’t see anything. He slowed without realizing it, and Coll, who was trailing a step or so behind, asked what was wrong. Par shook his head and picked up the pace again.
The wind whipped into his face, forcing him to lower his head against its sting. He glanced right, then left. There were flashes of movement to either side.
Something was tracking them.
Par felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle, but he forced himself to keep moving. Whatever was out there didn’t have the look or the movement of either Walker Boh or the cat. Too quick, too agile. He tried to gather his thoughts. How far were they from the cottage—a mile, maybe less? He kept his head up as he walked, trying to follow the movement out of the corner of his eye. Movements, he corrected himself. There was clearly more than one of them.
“Par!” Coll said as they brushed close passing through a narrow winding of trees. “There’s something . . .”
“I know!” Par cut him short. “Keep moving!”
They made their way through a broad stand of fir, and the rain began to fall in earnest. The sun, the walls of the valley, even the dark pinnacle of Hearthstone had disappeared. Par felt his breathing quicken. Their pursuers were all around them now, shadows that had taken on vaguely human form as they flitted through the trees.
They’re closing in on us, Par thought frantically. How much farther was the cottage?
Coll cried out suddenly as they pushed through a stand of red maple into a small, empty clearing. “Par, run for it! They’re too close . . . !”
He grunted sharply and pitched forward. Par wheeled instinctively and caught him. There was blood on Coll’s forehead, and he was unconscious.
Par never had time to figure out what had happened. He looked up, and the shadows were on top of him. They broke from the concealment of the trees all around him, bounding into view in a flurry of motion. Par caught a brief glimpse of bent, crooked forms covered with coarse, black hair and of glinting, ferret eyes, and then they were all over him. He flung them away as he struggled to escape, feeling tough, wiry limbs grapple at him. For a moment, he kept his feet. He cried out frantically, summoning the magic of the wishsong, sending forth a scattering of frightful images in an effort to protect himself. There were howls of fear, and his attackers shrank from him.
This time, he got a good look at them. He saw the strange, insectlike forms with their vaguely human faces, all twisted and hairy.
Spider Gnomes, he thought in disbelief!
Then they were on him once more, bearing him down by the sheer weight of their numbers. He was enveloped in a mass of sinew and hair and thrown to the ground. He could no longer summon the magic. His arms were being forced back, and he was being choked. He struggled desperately, but there were too many.
He had only a moment more to try to call out for help, and then everything went dark.
XI
When he came awake again, Par Ohmsford found himself in the middle of a nightmare. He was bound hand and foot and hanging from a pole. He was being carried through a forest thick with mist and shadows, the dark crease of a deep ravine visible to his left, the jagged edge of a ridgeline sharp against the night sky to his right. Scrub and the dense tangle of grasses and weeds slapped at his back and head as he swung helplessly from the pole, and the air was thick, humid, and still.
There were Spider Gnomes all around him, creeping soundlessly through the half-light on crooked legs.
Par closed his eyes momentarily to shut out the images, then opened them again. The skies were dark and overcast, but a scattering of stars shone through creases in the clouds and there was a faint hint of brightness beyond the drop of the ravine. Night had come and gone, he realized. It was almost morning.
He remembered then what had happened to him, how the Spider Gnomes had chased him, seized him, and taken him away. Coll! What had happened to Coll? He craned his neck in an effort to see if his brother had been brought as well, but there was no sign of him. He clenched his jaw in rage, remembering Coll falling, then sprawled on the ground with blood on his face . . .
He wiped the image quickly from his mind. It was useless to dwell on it. He must find a way to get free and return for his brother. He worked momentarily against the ropes that bound him, testing their strength, but there was no give. Hanging as he was, he could not find the leverage necessary to loosen them. He would have to wait. He wondered then where he was being taken—why he had been taken in the first place, for that matter. What did the Spider Gnomes want of him?
Insects buzzed in his face, flying at his eyes and mouth. He buried his face into his arms and left it there.
When he brought it out again, he tried to determine where he was. The light was to his left, the beginnings of the new day. East, then, he decided—the Spider Gnomes were traveling north. T
hat made sense. The Spider Gnomes had made their home on Toffer Ridge in Brin Ohmsford’s time. That was probably where he was. He swallowed against the dryness in his mouth and throat. Thirst and fear, he thought. He tried to recall what he could of Spider Gnomes from the stories of the old days, but he was unable to focus his thoughts. Brin had encountered them when she, Rone Leah, Cogline, Kimber Boh, and the moor cat Whisper had gone after the missing Sword of Leah. There was something else, something about a wasteland and the terrifying creatures that lived within it . . .
Then he remembered. Werebeasts. The name whispered in his mind like a curse.
The Spider Gnomes turned down a narrow defile, filling it with their hairy forms like a dark stain, chittering now in what appeared to be anticipation. The brightness in the east disappeared, and shadows and mist closed about them like a wall. His wrists and ankles ached, and his body felt stretched beyond help. The Gnomes were small and carried him close to the ground so that he bumped and scraped himself at every turn. He watched from his upside down position as the defile broadened into a shelf that opened out over a vast, mist-shrouded stretch of emptiness that seemed to run on forever. The shelf became a corridor through a series of boulders that dotted the side of Toffer Ridge like knots on the back of a boar. Firelight flickered in the distance, pinpricks of brightness playing hide-and-seek among the rocks. A handful of Spider Gnomes bounded ahead, skittering effortlessly over the rocks.
Par took a deep breath. Wherever it was they were going, they were almost there.
A moment later, they emerged from the rocks and came to a halt on a low bluff that ran back to a series of burrows and caves tunneled into the side of the ridge. Fires burned all about, and hundreds of Spider Gnomes hoved into view. Par was dumped unceremoniously, the bonds that secured him cut and the pole removed. He lay there on his back for a moment, rubbing his wrists and ankles, finding creases so deep that he bled, conscious all the time of the eyes watching him. Then he was hauled to his feet and dragged toward the caves and burrows. They bypassed the latter in favor of the former, the gnarled hands of the Gnomes fastened on him at every conceivable point, the stink of their bodies filling his nostrils. They chittered at each other in their own language, their talk incessant now and meaningless to him. He did not resist; he could barely stand upright. They took him through the largest of the cave openings, propelled him past a small fire that burned at its mouth and stopped. There was some discussion, a few moments’ worth at best, and then he was thrust forward. He saw they were in a smallish cave that ran back only twenty yards or so and was no more than eight feet at its highest point. A pair of iron rings had been hammered into the rock wall at the cave’s deepest point, and the Spider Gnomes lashed him to those. Then they left him, all but two who remained behind to take up watch by the fire at the cave entrance.
Par let his mind clear, listening to the silence, waiting to see what would happen next. When nothing did, he took a careful look about. He had been left spread-eagle against the rock wall, one arm secured to each of the iron rings. He was forced to remain standing because the rings were fastened too high up on the rock to allow him to sit. He tested his bonds. They were leather and secured so tightly that his wrists could not slip within them even the smallest amount.
He sagged back momentarily in despair, forcing down the panic that threatened to overwhelm him. The others would be looking for him by now—Morgan, Steff, Teel. They would already have found Coll. They would track the Spider Gnomes and come for him. They would find him and rescue him.
He shook his head. He was just kidding himself, he knew. It was almost dark when the Gnomes had taken him and the rain had been a hard one. There would have been no time for a search and no real chance of finding a trail. The best he could hope for was that Coll had been found or revived himself and gone to the others to tell them what had happened.
He swallowed again against the dryness. He was so thirsty!
Time slipped away, turning seconds to minutes, minutes to hours. The darkness outside brightened minimally, bringing a barely penetrable daylight, choked with heat and mist. The faint sounds of the Spider Gnomes disappeared altogether, and he would have thought them gone completely if not for the two who sat hunkered down by the cave’s entrance. The fire went out, smoking for a time, then turning to ash. The day slipped away. Once, one of the guards rose and brought him a cup of water. He drank it greedily from the hands that held it up to his mouth, spilling most of it, soaking his shirt front. He grew hungry as well, but no food was offered.
When the day began to fade to darkness again, the guards rebuilt the fire at the mouth of the cave, then disappeared.
Par waited expectantly, forgetting for the first time the ache of his body, the hunger and the fear. Something was going to happen now. He could feel it.
What happened was altogether unexpected. He was working again at his bonds, his sweat loosening them now, mingling with traces of his blood from the cuts the ties had made, when a figure appeared from the shadows. It came past the fire and into the light and stopped.
It was a child.
Par blinked. The child was a girl, perhaps a dozen years of age, rather tall and skinny with dark, lank hair and deepset eyes. She was not a Gnome, but of the Race of Man, a Southlander, with a tattered dress, worn boots, and a small silver locket about her neck. She looked at him curiously, studied him as she might a stray dog or cat, then came slowly forward. She stopped when she reached him, then lifted one hand to brush back his hair and touch his ear.
“Elf,” she said quietly, fingering the ear’s tip.
Par stared. What was a child doing out here among the Spider Gnomes? He wet his lips. “Untie me,” he begged.
She looked at him some more, saying nothing. “Untie me!” Par said again, more insistent this time. He waited, but the child just looked at him. He felt the beginnings of doubt creep through him. Something was not right.
“Hug you,” the child said suddenly.
She came to him almost anxiously, wrapping her arms about him, fastening herself to him like a leech. She clung to him, burying herself in his body, murmuring over and over again something he could not understand. What was the matter with this child, he wondered in dismay? She seemed lost, frightened perhaps, needing to hold him as much as he . . .
The thought died away as he felt her stirring against him, moving within her clothes, against his clothes, then against his skin. Her fingers had tightened into him, and he could feel her pressing, pressing. Shock flooded through him. She was right against him, against his skin, as if they wore no clothes at all, as if all their garments had been shed. She was burrowing, coming against him, then coming into him, merging somehow with him, making herself a part of him.
Shades! What was happening?
Repulsion filled him with a suddenness that was terrifying. He screamed, shook himself in horror, kicked out desperately and at last flung her away. She fell in a crouch, her child’s face transformed into something hideous, smiling like a beast at feeding, eyes sharp and glinting with pinpricks of red light.
“Give me the magic, boy!” she rasped in a voice that sounded nothing of a child’s.
Then he knew. “Oh, no, oh, no,” he whispered over and over, bracing himself as she came slowly back to her feet.
This child was a Shadowen!
“Give it to me!” she repeated, her voice demanding. “Let me come into you and taste it!”
She came toward him, a spindly little thing, a bit of nothing, if her face had not betrayed her. She reached for him and he kicked out at her desperately. She smiled wickedly and stepped back.
“You are mine,” she said softly. “The Gnomes have given you to me. I will have your magic, boy. Give yourself to me. See what I can feel like!”
She came at him like a cat at its prey, avoiding his kick, fastening herself to him with a howl. He could feel her moving almost immediately—not the child herself, but something within the child. He forced himself to look down an
d could see the faintest whisper of a dark outline shimmering within the child’s body, trying to move into his own. He could feel its presence, like a chill on a summer’s day, like fly’s feet against his skin. The Shadowen was touching, seeking. He threw back his head, clenched his jaw, made his body as rigid as iron, and fought it. The thing, the Shadowen, was trying to come into him. It was trying to merge with him. Oh, Shades! He must not let it! He must not!
Then, unexpectedly, he cried out, releasing the magic of the wishsong in a howl of mingled rage and anguish. It took no form, for he had already determined that even his most frightening images were of no use against these creatures. It came of its own volition, breaking free from some dark corner of his being to take on a shape he did not recognize. It was a dark, unrecognizable thing, and it whipped about him like webbing from a spider about its prey. The Shadowen hissed and tore itself away, spitting and clawing at the air. It dropped again into a crouch, the child’s body contorted and shivering from something unseen. Par’s cry died into silence at the sight of it, and he sagged back weakly against the cave wall.
“Stay back from me!” he warned, gasping for breath. “Don’t touch me again!”
He didn’t know what he had done or how he had done it, but the Shadowen hunched down against the firelight and glared at him in defeat. The hint of the being within the child’s body shimmered briefly and was gone. The glint of red in the eyes disappeared. The child rose slowly and straightened, a child in truth once more, frail and lost. Dark eyes studied him for long moments and she said faintly once more, “Hug me.”
Then she called into the gathering darkness without, and the Spider Gnomes reappeared, several dozen strong, bowing and scraping to the child as they entered. She spoke to them in their own language while they knelt before her, and Par remembered how superstitious these creatures were, believing in gods and spirits of all sorts. And now they were in the thrall of a Shadowen. He wanted to scream.
