The Stiehl Assassin

by Terry Brooks

  “Apparently not,” he said as he knelt next to her. Of all the people he might have expected to find here, she was the very last. Although he was beginning to wonder what sort of capricious fate kept throwing them back together. How was it possible that she could be here?

  “Are you badly hurt?” Tarsha was kneeling beside the Skaar princess, as well, her face alight with concern.

  Dar quickly reached over and moved her back. “Not too close, Tarsha,” he warned. “This is Ajin d’Amphere, princess of the Skaar. She was the leader of the advance force that wiped out the Druids, and was directly responsible for sending Paranor and Drisker into limbo. She is not a friend.”

  Ajin shook her head. “You wound me with such harsh words, Darcon. After all, I saved your life not so long ago and you, in turn, saved mine. We have a strong link, you and I.” She shifted her gaze between them. “Besides, I hardly think either of you need worry about me anymore. Not after what I’ve endured. If you free me from the wreckage, I will tell you all about it. It will probably make you happy to hear.”

  Dar gave a dismissive grunt. “We’ll see. First, let’s find out if we can free you to relate your woes.”

  He motioned Tarsha away, moved over to one end of the timber that trapped Ajin’s legs, and bent to lift it. He couldn’t. He was unable to move it even an inch. He tried repeatedly, but the weight of the mast defeated him.

  “I need an ax,” he muttered.

  Ajin shook her head. “Everything was scattered on impact, along with all of those aboard—me included—save that one.” She pointed at a crumpled man, who was sprawled to one side, his throat torn open, the blood still welling up. “He tried to kill me.”

  “You must be used to that.” Dar walked over and looked down at the man. “Isn’t he one of yours?”

  “So I thought. A mistake on my part, it appears. But then, I have made quite a few lately. Can you not find a way to free me?”

  “If I can get help, maybe…”

  “I don’t think we should wait for that,” Tarsha said suddenly. “Look at her left side.”

  Dar did, and immediately saw that the dark patch he had mistaken for her clothing was blood. He brushed the snowflakes from his face to clear his vision and knelt down again. “How bad do you think it is, Princess?”

  “Ajin,” she corrected him. “We agreed.” Although to Dar’s way of thinking, they hadn’t agreed to anything. “I don’t know,” she continued. “It doesn’t hurt much, but the bleeding hasn’t stopped.”

  Dar bent close.

  “It’s my legs I’m worried about,” she added.

  “I think we need to free her, and it’s probably a job best left to me,” Tarsha said, touching his shoulder.

  He rose and turned to her. “You’ll use the wishsong?”

  She nodded. “Can I try?”

  He nodded wordlessly, and she moved to stand directly over the broken mast piece where it pinned Ajin in place. The princess looked up at her doubtfully. “Will this hurt?”

  Tarsha ignored her, closed her eyes, and began to hum, and Dar could tell she was summoning her magic. It was always impossible to tell how things might turn out—especially where the wishsong was concerned—but Tarsha’s face was calm as her humming shifted into a chant that lacked recognizable words but contained sharp, high-pitched sounds that caused Ajin to cover her ears.

  Bits of smoke began to rise from the mast directly between Ajin’s legs, smoking and then glowing bright red. The Skaar princess, to her credit, did not panic. She held herself perfectly still as Tarsha worked. Until, abruptly, the heavy piece of wood broke apart at the juncture where the magic had been working, and Ajin was free.

  Tarsha staggered back a step, looking worn and shaky. Dar quickly guided her into a sitting position and pulled her cloak tight about her slender form. “Well done, Tarsha. The princess owes you a debt of gratitude.”

  “Which I intend to repay.” Ajin tried getting to her feet, found her legs wouldn’t hold her, and quickly sat back again. “Not quite ready to stand up yet, I guess. Was that magic, Tarsha?” she asked. “Are you a Druid?”

  “She’s a Druid’s apprentice,” Dar answered for her. “And the Druid is not too far away from us. Just stay where you are.”

  Those last words were an order. Ajin faced him defiantly for a moment, then shrugged. “It’s not as if there is anywhere for me to go, Darcon. Even if I could stand. Even,” she added playfully, “if you were to decide to come with me.”

  Dar positioned himself between the two women and wrapped his long arms about his knees. “It’s very cold out here. We need a fire to warm up. And Tarsha needs to rest.” He paused. “Any chance your soldiers will be out looking for you in this weather?”

  Ajin gave him a rueful smile. “Not a chance. Not in this weather or any other. I was being sent home in disgrace when my airship crashed.”

  “Sounds interesting. I’ll gather some wood for that fire, then. Afterward, why don’t you tell me everything that’s happened to bring you back into my life yet again? Didn’t you offer to do as much?”

  She gave him a nod. “The offer stands.”

  “Will you behave if I turn my back for a minute?”

  “My word of honor. I’ll sit right here.”

  “Good.” Dar got to his feet and moved off into the darkness without looking back.

  TEN

  ON THE SHORES OF the Hadeshorn, with the wind whipping about him in a series of shrieks and howls and the dead dancing on the air in a frenzy that matched the wildness of the world about them, Drisker Arc stared past sound and fury, past blackness and mist, and saw the past.

  It was before his time by several centuries. It was a legend that stretched back for centuries before even that. It was for many the reason that magic was distrusted and the Druids reviled. Memories are strong when they are fed relentlessly, and the memories of the shade he faced now had long since taken on a life of their own. He had read the stories in the Druid Histories during his time as Ard Rhys—had read them late into the night because he could not make himself leave them once he had started.

  Tales recorded by the Druids.

  Tales of vast upheaval and turmoil.

  All of them centered, in one way or another, on her.

  She was an Ohmsford, stolen as a child from her parents and separated from her brother by a creature of dark magic known as the Morgawr. Taken by him to be made over into his likeness, she was turned into an assassin of such deadly capabilities that she was known and feared everywhere. Later, she traveled to a far distant country called Parkasia, tracking Walker Boh and the brother she had lost and unwittingly found again, her travels leading to discoveries and revelations that eventually had brought her back to face the Morgawr with her brother at her side.

  Then, in the years that followed, she had become, through extraordinary circumstances, Ard Rhys of the Druids of Paranor—and then been cast out and imprisoned in the Forbidding through the treachery of a band of the very Druids she was given to lead. She had been subjected to unspeakable tortures at the hands of the Straken Lord, the demon who led the unfortunates walled away in the time of Faerie. Driven nearly to madness and most certainly to desperation beyond anyone’s imagining, she had weathered it all and been saved by her nephew, who had come for her when no one else could have and brought her back into the Four Lands.

  Yet it did not end there. How could it, given the extraordinary nature of her life? Realizing she would never be accepted by either her Druids or the people of the Four Lands, she had chosen to enter into the service of Mother Tanequil, the root-bound half of the talismanic tree that had given her the means by which she was able to escape the Forbidding. Taken into the service of her savior, she had become a spirit and made forever free of her old life.

  It was all written down in the Histories for the Druids to read. Drisker w
ondered now, as he often had in the past, how many had bothered to do so.

  But the writings were not yet finished. Her life, after all, was not over. A final chapter remained. In an attempt to save the Four Lands from the emergence of the Straken Lord and his demons upon the passing of the Ellcrys, one of two twins—Ohmsford descendants in the time of the High Druid Aphenglow Elessedil—had gone to the tanequil and bargained for her release from her spirit form so she could return to the Four Lands as a flesh-and-blood creature that would stand against the invader’s dark leader. And when it was done, her hatred for the Straken Lord burned as strongly as the fires of the sun. In the end, she brought him down. But when a new Ellcrys was born, almost simultaneously, the magic of the Forbidding had swept up the escaped demons like leaves to return them to their prison—and taken her with them. There was to be no return to the tanequil, no transformation back into her spirit form, no allowance for her saving. She was a demon creature herself by then, and the magic made no distinctions.

  Grianne Ohmsford.

  Shades!

  Drisker shook his head in disbelief. Still in the form in which she had been released from the tanequil, still as dark and terrible as she had been when swept once more into the Forbidding, she had somehow come back through the avenues of the dead to emerge from the Hadeshorn in response to his summoning.

  There could only be one explanation for this. Grianne Ohmsford must be one of the dead. She had died during her imprisonment in the Forbidding and been given her release as a Druid shade to take up residence in the dark of the netherworld.

  They faced each other in silence for a long time, saying nothing, each studying the other. Do not think of her as Grianne Ohmsford, he warned himself. Think of her only as the Ilse Witch.

  –So this is who now stands in my shoes as Ard Rhys of Paranor. You, Drisker Arc–

  “I am all that is left. The other Druids have been killed.”

  –You don’t look strong enough to carry the load. You seem a reluctant bearer at best–

  “I am that, but I will do what is needed.”

  –You left your office and abandoned your responsibilities once before, Drisker Arc. Who is to say you will not do so again–

  Drisker took a deep breath. He did not care for the way this conversation had started out, and he was worried that the Ilse Witch had already decided not to give him any answers at all. If she even could. Yet this was something he now believed was possible.

  “I was trapped in Paranor when another with the Druid magic sent both the Keep and myself into limbo. To gain my freedom and return the Druid’s Keep and its archived magic, I was required to acknowledge my duty to my position as Ard Rhys and endure a testing to be sure I would not fail again.”

  The shade gestured dismissively, the waters behind her boiled with fresh fury, and the shades of the dead circling overhead shrank back in response. Drisker tried to think how to turn things more his way, how to gain sufficient favor with this creature that she might be willing to speak further with him.

  But then she surprised him.

  –What questions do you have for me? Speak them now–

  The words were spoken with such loathing that for a second Drisker did not respond. When he did, he went on the offensive. “Are you able to speak with me as would another Druid shade? Are you come to the netherworld to be an equal to the others? Or am I wasting my time?”

  Her aged face twisted in fury, and in that instant he believed himself a dead man—even though he knew that shades could not directly harm the living or interfere with their lives. The force of her glare, her withering gaze, and the cruel twist of lips suggested she found him of minimal worth, and she would leave him where he stood, yearning for what she would never give him.

  –You think me one of the dead. You think me a shade, a ghost woman come from the netherworld to serve up evasive and treacherous answers to questions you have about your future. You know nothing–

  “Tell me then,” he urged.

  For a long moment, she said nothing. She stared at him as if taking his measure, judging the worth of doing as he asked.

  –I will speak one more time. Be careful of your response when I am finished. I am not one of the dead. I am not yet come to greet you as a Druid shade. I live still. I live within the Forbidding, leader of the unfortunate creatures trapped there, imprisoned as they are, but with greater magic than they possess and stronger ambitions than they could imagine–

  A pause. “So how do you come through their avenues of passage if you are not yet one of the dead?” he asked.

  –I do this because I can, Drisker Arc. I am barred from this world in my flesh-and-blood form, but not as a spirit able to navigate the paths of the dead. My power allows me to bend the rules. So when I read your thoughts and saw your indecision, I knew you would come here for your answers as Druids have done since the beginning of their time. Are you satisfied now?–

  “I am pleased. Who better to address my problem than one who has a foot in two worlds? If you will hear my questions, I will pay close attention to your answers.”

  A long, low laugh emanated from the creature before him.

  –Oh, I am certain of that. You will listen closely if for no better reason than to determine if I am playing false with you, if I am leading you astray, if I seek to undo you completely through misplaced trust. But you do not need to worry, Drisker. I am not a shade, and I have no desire to trick you in any way. On the contrary, I wish to give the exact information you require. Every last piece of it. You need only ask–

  But with the Ilse Witch, you could never be sure. The stories about her made that clear enough. And so he saw at once what she had failed to add. “But there are conditions?”

  The hunch of her aged shoulders revealed the truth. –There is one. It is this. I do not come out of pity for your plight or any foolish need to do something helpful to an order that in the end betrayed me. I seek one thing and one thing only–

  She lifted her face out of the shadow of her cowl, and the expression on her ancient visage was something resembling hope.

  –I seek to strike a bargain. If you agree, you will have your answers. If you do not, I will be gone back to whence I came and you will not see me again. Which do you choose?–

  * * *

  —

  At the crash site where Dar had left them, Ajin d’Amphere and Tarsha Kaynin sat facing each other in the near-total darkness, saying nothing.

  “You’re not exactly suited for this sort of experience, are you?” Ajin asked finally. “Kind of young.”

  Tarsha gave her a dark look. “You’re not that much older than I am. Why would I not be as well suited as you?”

  The Skaar princess shrugged. “I’ve had a tougher life than you. I’ve been fighting beside my father’s soldiers since I was fifteen. I’ve seen things that would curdle your blood. At a guess, I would say you’ve never been more than fifty miles from home before.”

  Ajin was taunting her, Tarsha thought in surprise. Trying to draw her into an argument, but why? Then she remembered Ajin’s comments about Dar Leah, and the way she had looked at him, and realized the truth. The Skaar princess fancied herself in love with Dar and wondered about Tarsha’s relationship with the Blade.

  Tarsha almost laughed. It was so ridiculous that she paused, reconsidering, only to return to the idea immediately. She wasn’t mistaken: Ajin was trying to find out if Tarsha was competition.

  As if the Blade were a prize Tarsha would have any interest in at all. Brecon Elessedil, maybe. But the Blade was too dark and complicated for her to think of him as anything but a friend.

  “You know nothing of me,” she said instead to Ajin. “My brother was driven mad by the magic you saw me wield. He was sent to live with my uncle, who abused him in ways that would curdle your blood. He killed my uncle, came home and killed my parents
, and on the way to find me killed over twenty more people. And then he tried to kill me. Twice! The second attempt occurred only a day ago. So don’t try to lecture me about how pampered my life has been. At least you’re a princess. I don’t even have that. I’m a nobody.”

  Ajin was silent for a moment, then she smiled. “You’re one tough nobody, if a nobody is all you are. And I doubt very much it is. In any event, I apologize.”

  She held out her hand and Tarsha took it briefly, still wary. They were silent for a long time, neither quite sure where to take the conversation—or even if it was a good idea to continue it. But Tarsha was curious to know more about this young woman. “Did I hear you say you were being sent home?”

  Ajin sighed. “By my father, who disapproves of me using my own judgment and doing what he would have done in my place had he been here. He begrudges me any independence that he hasn’t specifically granted me. So when he arrived early this morning, he dismissed me from service and ordered me home. I left him with the army, camped on the north bank of the Mermidon, directly across from a Federation fleet of airships. It appears to be a standoff for now.”

  “You wanted him to let you stay.” Tarsha made it a statement of fact.

  The Skaar princess nodded. “He needs me to manage the army. I need to be leading those soldiers, not him. I grew up with them. We fought together in campaigns all across Eurodia. I weathered everything they did, shared their food and their talk and all the hard times as well as the good. They are like brothers to me.”

  “Except for this one.” She pointed to the man Ajin had killed.

  “Except for him. He was in the pay of the pretender—my father’s new queen. She’s been undermining me for years.”

  Tarsha was having trouble following all this but wanted to keep the other woman talking. She still hadn’t heard any mention of Dar Leah, and she wanted to find out how they had come to know each other.