The Skaar Invasion

by Terry Brooks

  The decision made, he closed his eyes and brought an image of his young student to mind. For this type of search, all that was required was that he picture her face, imagine him with her, then reach out and bring her close. It would all take place in his mind and hers, but it would seem to each as if they were really face-to-face and speaking.

  Her image filled his thoughts, and he held it fast.

  Tarsha.

  Instantly he was with her.

  * * *

  —

  Tarsha had traveled east with Dar Leah and Brecon Elessedil, leaving Emberen behind. She would have stayed if she had thought there was anything she could do, but by the time she had fled Flinc’s underground home, made her way through the forest, and encountered Brecon, she was an emotional and physical wreck. Days of being drugged by Clizia and her subsequent battle with Tavo and imprisonment in Drisker’s cabin had worn her down to nothing. She might have been saved from all that, but it would take awhile before she was back to herself.

  Leaving was necessary, if only to ensure her safety, but it was also incredibly hard.

  Her brother, after all, was back there, still in Clizia’s clutches.

  Nor could she pretend she did not know what had happened to Flinc. Clizia and her brother had discovered his home, and the forest imp had chosen to stay behind to face them in order to save her. For that alone, Clizia would have killed him—and Tavo would have helped, because he saw anyone who gave aid to Tarsha as an enemy. She had heard the sounds of fighting, and then the terrible silence.

  No, Flinc was gone, and it was her fault. She should never have left him. She should have stayed to protect him.

  But Dar and Brecon would not listen to her protestations or pleas, telling her they were in terrible danger, filling her in as they hurried to Brecon’s airship on how they had found her and what had been required to rescue her.

  “It was a diversion by Dar that made it possible,” the Elven prince told her, cradling her in his arms as the Blade took the helm. “He risked everything to save you.”

  She nodded wordlessly. She had begun shaking after they boarded, and now could not seem to stop. Not willing to leave her alone, Brecon had chosen to wrap her in a blanket and hold her against him to share his warmth.

  “He stood up to Clizia by himself and fought her off,” Brecon continued. “He gave the forest imp and myself time to enter from the back of the cottage and sneak you out. The plan would have worked if not for Flinc’s foolish decision to carry you away on his own when I went to Dar’s aid. He brought it on himself.”

  She shook her head. “He was trying to protect me! He didn’t understand the cost of such a decision. He lost his way.”

  “He lost his mind,” Dar muttered, mostly to himself, but she heard him, anyway.

  “I shouldn’t have abandoned him.” She kept her voice soft and steady, not wishing to argue the matter. “I should have found a way to help him.”

  “Staying would have cost you your life!” Dar insisted fiercely, and she let the subject drop.

  They flew on through the day and into the night, their pace steady and unbroken save for a single stop to eat and briefly rest. Conversations were short and revolved mostly around what they were going to do once they arrived at the former site of Paranor. How were they going to help? But Tarsha felt strongly that this was where she needed to be in order to speak to Drisker Arc again. He will find a way to reach out to us, she repeated over and over in answer to the doubts and misgivings of the other two. When he does, we will help him find his way out of his imprisonment.

  It was an odd insistence. After all, how could she know what it would take to free the Druid? But his appearance in her bedroom three nights before had instilled a certainty in her that was unshakable. She believed she could help him return to the Four Lands. She felt she was meant to do this. It was her destiny to work with him and try to become like him—not a Druid exactly, for she could never be that, but at least a magic user of some skill. It was a bold task she was setting herself, with so little reason to believe there was any hope of seeing it come to fruition, but she had never been one to back away from a challenge—even one as seemingly hopeless as this. And she felt in her heart that she was doing the right thing.

  Of course, the alternative was to go back and face Clizia and try to save her brother. And that was not something she could do just now.

  By midnight, they were still well shy of their destination, but exhausted. So they landed in a clearing in the deep woods, hoping to stay hidden from anyone who might be watching. They unpacked their bedrolls, ate a cold dinner, and went to sleep under the stars in the shadow of their transport.

  While Tarsha slept—an unsettled, restless sleep—Drisker came to her. He appeared just as a voice at first, calling out to her in an urgent summons. She responded in her mind and then, on coming awake, found him waiting only a few yards away. A faded, shopworn image frayed around the edges—a pale imitation of the man she had once known.

  He knelt before her. Are you well?

  She nodded quickly. “Well enough. And you? You look so pale, Drisker. Tell me what is happening. Wait! Let me wake the others first.”

  He did not object, so she woke Dar and Brecon. Dar looked relieved to see Drisker, his lean face calm and his gaze steady. Brecon just stared in what appeared to be disbelief.

  Tarsha, Drisker said when all were gathered. My time in this limbo existence grows short. I am draining away. There is no pain, no sense of loss beyond my fading, but I feel it coming on. I must get free.

  “What can we do?” she asked at once. “How can we help you?”

  He shook his head. I don’t know that you can. I cannot yet help myself, so I’m not certain what helping me might require. I am searching for an answer. Once I have it, it would be good to have you close by.

  “We are not far from you,” Tarsha told him. “Less than a day’s flight from where Paranor once was.”

  Good. Once you arrive, stay there for another few days to give me time to consider further. Although just now I feel defeated.

  “We will stay as long as we need to,” Tarsha answered firmly, missing the look that passed between the other two. “You must find a way out of there, Drisker! We will help you if we can.”

  Then she paused, her face twisting with the pain of what she was feeling. “You mustn’t give up. You can’t!”

  The wraithlike figure turned its head momentarily, then said, Is Clizia dead?

  Dar shook his head. “We left her behind when we rescued Tarsha.” He quickly explained what had happened the day before, ending with how they’d found Tarsha and spirited her away. “But Clizia and Tarsha’s brother are probably still there, in your cottage.”

  Drisker shook his head. She will be tracking you. She has the scrye orb, and she may be able to use it to find you. Stay hidden as best you can, but if I haven’t secured my freedom soon, you will have to leave. Don’t underestimate her. She is a match for all three of you, talismans and magic notwithstanding.

  “I think she might have hurt Flinc,” Tarsha said, and told him of how the forest imp had tried to save her.

  Flinc is resourceful but foolish. He should have known better. But he is fascinated with you. He took you once before, you know, and I had to come and release you. I suppose he wanted you for himself this time, too. He brought this on himself, Tarsha. You must let it go. And perhaps, you will have to let me go, as well.

  The girl stepped forward, determination reflected on her young features. “Don’t ask that of me. You find a way out of there! And don’t try to force us to leave, because we won’t!”

  I don’t suppose you will. A smile and a nod. Very well. Watch for me.

  And then he vanished.

  * * *

  —

  Back inside the Keep, Drisker found himself staring at nothing
for a moment as he recovered from sending his astral projection to Tarsha, taking deep breaths to steady himself as he looked around the room. Cogline was still staring at him, taking the measure of what he had witnessed.

  “You are satisfied?” the old man asked.

  “She’s safe for the moment,” Drisker told him. “But only for the moment.”

  The other nodded, and a smile momentarily brightened his ghostly features. “Then you must go to her.”

  He backed away in a swift, floating movement and melted into the wall.

  Drisker barely registered his disappearance, his thoughts already shifting back to the matter of mastering the magic of the Black Elfstone. He considered the short list of what he knew.

  He couldn’t summon it.

  He should be able to.

  Walker Boh had done so centuries ago.

  Others before and after him had done so, as well.

  His frustration surfaced anew. “What am I missing?” he whispered to himself.

  Cogline’s voice spoke from within the blank wall. “The obvious.”

  Drisker hesitated, then walked away. He did not need further advice from Cogline, not when it was completely unhelpful. What he needed was sound reasoning and a place to start. He pondered the matter as he walked the cavernous halls of Paranor, heading for the High Druid’s offices where the Druid Histories were stored, but his thoughts wandered. The obvious. Maybe the old man was telling the truth. Maybe what he was missing was obvious—if he could just figure out why it wasn’t obvious to him.

  He went down another flight of stairs, then along the lower hallway to where the Histories were stored. The books sat out on a reading table within the vault that housed them. Some were opened to the pages he had been reading earlier and some were closed, stacked on top of one another and set aside. The room was gloom-filled and shadowy, the light diffuse and pale. Everything Drisker could see was indistinct and emptied of color.

  The Druid took one of the reading chairs and sat back in contemplation. It was a way to clear his mind, and never had his mind needed to be sharper than it did now. He looked down at his body, examining the way it had faded. He had not become transparent yet—or even translucent—but he expected that would come with time. For the moment, he was still reasonably opaque; the main difference lay in the lack of any color. His body was graying, dimming—a change that had increased steadily since he had found himself trapped.

  There was definitely a diminishment of substance.

  He looked away quickly. Enough. He had to think. He needed answers—and quickly.

  He went back to the book that chronicled the events leading up to Walker Boh becoming the sole member of the order well back before the Druids returned to the Four Lands and began to grow strong again. In those days, there had been no Druids at all. There had only been Walker, living with Cogline, summoned by Allanon to serve as the first of a new Druid order. Walker had not wanted to do so. He had resisted. But in the end, he had found himself trapped in a Paranor that Allanon had sent into limbo, forced to become the very thing he had sworn he would never be in order to escape his prison.

  Just as it appeared Drisker must do now.

  So they had that in common. Like Walker, he was not a Druid—at least not any longer. And like Walker, he had been given the task of returning Paranor to the Four Lands in order to escape it. But where Walker had been able to make that happen, Drisker could not. Why? What was the difference between them? What had Walker known that he did not?

  He stopped short and shifted his perspective. Maybe he was asking the wrong question. Maybe it wasn’t what Walker had known that had freed him to use the magic, but what he had discovered. There was a secret hidden somewhere in all this, a bit of knowledge that his predecessor had managed to uncover while he had not. Walker Boh and Drisker Arc, so much alike in so many ways. The answer had to lie somewhere in the similarity of their situations; somewhere in their mutually shared need to bring back the Druid’s Keep from its limbo existence.

  Use of magic, use of magic, use of magic…

  He repeated the words, whispering them. Again, he stopped himself. What did the use of magic require in order to command it?

  A price.

  A cost to the user. Always and always. That cost was not always clear at the time the magic was summoned and used, but it was always revealed at some point. It would have been so for Walker Boh in his time. And it would be so now for Drisker.

  But what determined the nature of the cost? Sometimes, it was flesh and blood. Sometimes, it was a life given in sacrifice. Sometimes it was harsh, and sometimes barely noticeable. It varied wildly with each use. History had taught the Druids as much. So what was the cost here? It would be substantial for such powerful magic. Did it require his life? What would it take? What would be enough to satisfy the payment demanded?

  And abruptly, he knew the answer. He had known it all along, he thought in despair; he had simply refused to accept it. There would be no bargaining. There would be no easing of the weight the price would carry. He would simply have to bear it. It was in the nature of who he was and who he always would be.

  He lowered his head into his hands. Don’t cry, he told himself.

  But he was already weeping.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The night was deep, and time seemed to have stopped. The city of Arishaig rose about them in a dizzying array of impenetrable black shapes and mysterious purposes. Here and there, lamps glowed yellow and dim in an evening mist that spread all through the city before climbing the walls and disappearing across hilly grasslands in a liquid flow. Overhead, a tapestry of stars peeked out from the vast firmament of a clouded sky.

  But Shea Ohmsford was not looking at the stars or contemplating their mysteries. He was barely aware of his surroundings. Instead, his attention was completely focused on the massive walled structure situated just ahead of where he stood with Rocan Arneas, in the heavy shadows of a building’s overhang.

  Assidian Deep.

  It was the name given to the complex of Federation prisons that had been built close to the outer walls that warded Arishaig on the south perimeter of the city, hunkering down atop a vast underground river that flowed beneath its formidable bulk for miles in either direction—a river born in the Anar and dispersed in miles of tributaries that snaked their way across vast regions of the Southland. That a prison was built across one of those tributaries, even given the narrowness of the river’s channel, seemed at first glance a fool’s choice. But those who had constructed Assidian Deep had been privy to the reasons for this choice and told not to reveal them—although, as with all such things, the truth had leaked out, anyway. The river was a delivery system, a means of disposal for all those who met their end within the prison’s walls—they were tossed down chutes to be carried away by the river’s swift flow and made to disappear.

  For this underground river was so deep and so furious, it was said, it would never give up its bodies.

  Shea Ohmsford knew the stories. Everyone living in the Southland knew them. Everyone knew someone who had gone into Assidian Deep and not come out again. The stories came back to the boy now as he stared at the forbidding structure and felt a raw, overwhelming terror fill him.

  “I’m supposed to go in there?” he whispered, because his voice failed him and a whisper was all he could manage.

  “We’re supposed to go in there,” Rocan corrected calmly, “if we want to get Tindall back.”

  Massive walls fronted them—barriers to everything Rocan had insisted must happen, a warning to stay clear. Shea felt an unspoken certainty vibrate in his bones—a conviction that, if he took one more step, it would be the beginning of the end of his life. It was the same as if he were standing in front of a flash rip, its charge loaded in the parse tube chamber, its barrel pointed at his heart, and a finger on the trigger readied to pull. Steppin
g back, giving way and turning around, would save his life. Anything else, and he would be gone from the world of men and from any chance of a future as quick as a flash of lightning in a rainstorm.

  “I told you there would be uses for a boy like you,” Arneas said, turning to look at him. “This is one of them. You can do what I cannot. I would rather we began your service to me in some other way, but fate deals us the hand she chooses. You know this. We must free Tindall from these walls. We must have him back, or all our plans come to nothing.”

  All our plans. All your plans, the boy thought. My plans were for something far different.

  And his mind drifted back momentarily to four nights earlier.

  * * *

  —

  “I know it sounds strange to hear that such a machine might exist,” said Rocan Arneas, “but it does. Tindall invented it. He developed and explored the science that allowed for it. And once he knew the science well enough, he had the pieces built to assemble Annabelle. I financed his work with my winnings over a three-year period. It was very expensive, but I was convinced it was something worth doing. So I gave him what help I could.”

  “And you built a weather machine?” Shea was incredulous. “How can anyone change the weather? Nature makes the weather, not Men. Besides, what’s the point of changing the weather, anyway?”