The Stiehl Assassin

by Terry Brooks

  “Come back inside,” he finished. “We should be reading the scrye waters rather than standing around contemplating Clizia’s foolishness.”

  He took them back to the main building and up several flights of stairs to the hallway that led to the cold room. When they were inside the room with the door closed to preserve the requisite temperature, he took several long minutes to study the surface of the waters, using gestures and whispered words to conjure responses. Tarsha stood behind him, watching closely, while Tavo wandered off to examine the drawings and books shelved to one side.

  When Drisker finally stepped away from the scrye bowl, he shook his head. “Nothing. At least, nothing in the past few days. The last readings are of the Guardian’s response to Clizia’s attempts to reclaim the Keep, and the emergence of the shades of the dead in response to my summons at the Hadeshorn. We will need to be patient a little while longer.”

  “How much longer?” Tavo asked.

  “It’s impossible to know. One of us needs to keep watch on the waters in case something happens—starting now. Tavo, will you agree to stand guard first while Tarsha rests and I do a quick search of the Keep to make sure everything is still in order?”

  Tavo nodded eagerly, as Drisker had thought he might. Even though a constant vigil was not needed, it was another way of giving him responsibility and showing him that he was an accepted member of their little company. “Just wait until the waters are disturbed and remember where the disturbance occurred. You will see that a map of the Four Lands has been inked on the bottom of the bowl to give you a reference point. I will be back within a couple of hours and your sister will be sleeping right next door in the watch room.”

  “I want to go with you,” Tarsha said at once. “I’m not sleepy, and I want to see the Keep.”

  Drisker hesitated and glanced momentarily at Tavo. “All right,” he agreed after a moment. “You can come.”

  “Just don’t leave me here alone for too long,” her brother mumbled, mostly to himself.

  The girl went to him and folded him in her arms. “Never again, Tavo. Never again. My word of honor.”

  He nodded into her shoulder but said nothing.

  * * *

  —

  Tarsha trailed after Drisker as he prowled the hallways and rooms of the Druid’s Keep, from the floor where the cold room was located to the cellars that lay deep beneath the building. They moved quickly, Drisker seldom slowing to do more than glance around. When she asked him how he could know if everything was as it should be, he told her he was only checking for recent intrusions. He found little evidence save on the main floor and in the cellars by the escape tunnel. He was assuming these were all places Clizia had passed through after gaining entrance into Paranor, and that she had not had time to get much of anywhere else before the Guardian emerged.

  They were walking in silence as they retraced their steps to return to the cold room when Tarsha said, “That was Allanon you spoke to at the Hadeshorn, wasn’t it?”

  Drisker nodded. “His shade.”

  She grimaced. “He was terrifying.”

  “He was so in life, as well. Everyone feared him. Even those he was trying to help. Even the first Shea Ohmsford, whom he helped guide on the boy’s search for the Sword of Shannara.”

  “What did he tell you about me?”

  “Nothing much.”

  “But something. Tell me.”

  Drisker stopped and turned to face her. “What makes you think it was anything worth repeating?”

  She did not back down; she wanted an answer. “You asked me to come with you. You told me it was necessary because the shade had insisted on my presence.”

  “He did want you there, it’s true. He wanted to take your measure—to assess you in the way the dead do. He wanted to see if you were up to what he believes lies ahead. He would not speak of it, but he knows you possess the magic of the wishsong. That would be reason enough for him to worry, but I think it was something more. I sensed he believed you had an important role yet to come.”

  “But why would it matter if he saw me at all, if he knows so much of what is hidden from us?”

  “Maybe he didn’t know this.”

  “And he could find the answer by just looking at me?”

  Drisker turned away and started walking again. “Good question. I don’t know the answer. As you know, he had his look, he made a vague statement about your importance and the extent of the challenges that you might face, and that was it.”

  For a moment, she didn’t say anything. She just kept walking beside him, head down, eyes staring at the floor.

  “It troubles you,” the Druid said quietly.

  She nodded. “Wouldn’t it trouble you?”

  “Not so much. I know the dead talk of things we cannot know but of which they have some knowledge. They like to tease us with their insights, play games to make us guess at what they are, yet will never divulge them.”

  Tarsha nodded absently. “What about the way you placed your fingers in the Hadeshorn and then touched them to my forehead. What happened there? Why did you do that?”

  Her companion hesitated. “I think we should leave that for later.”

  She took hold of his arm and pulled him to a stop. “That was what you told me while we were at the Hadeshorn. I’ve waited long enough. I have a right to know. I think you should tell me now.”

  He shook his head. “Not yet. Be patient.”

  Tarsha masked a surge of anger as they climbed the stairs to the next floor and continued on. “What do you think about Tavo?” she asked, forcing herself to change the subject. “How well do you think he is doing?”

  Drisker smiled. “Well enough. We have to keep working with him, letting him know he is not in danger from us, giving him fresh reasons to keep his demons at bay. He doesn’t appear to hear the voices anymore, which is very good. Nor does he seem to see you as his enemy, either, which is even better.”

  “I think he sees me as his sister again. I’ve talked with him over the past week about how much we share and how close we once were. I think he wants that back. I haven’t talked about our parents and what happened with our uncle, or with any of the others he killed. I don’t really know how to start that conversation. It would probably be better if it began with him rather than me.”

  The Druid shrugged. “I think you have to use your own good judgment about that, Tarsha. I don’t know that there is any right or wrong time for it. But when you talk about such things, you have to feel as comfortable with it as you can. You have to make a solid connection with Tavo if the conversation is to accomplish anything. At some point, he has to come to terms with what he has done. He has to know that you forgive him, and that he has to forgive himself. There is no redemption for such terrible acts, but there can be understanding. He was not in his right mind then, and he had at least some provocation for everything he did. And at the end of the day, you can never go back—you can only go forward. You can make a better life for yourself only when you put the past behind you.”

  “As much as anyone can ever put it behind them when it has shaped all they are and do.”

  “Each situation is different. Tavo is on the extreme edge of sanity and will require a great deal of effort and time. Maybe he will never find peace. Not entirely. But maybe he can find a balance.”

  They walked on together in silence, and Tarsha found herself wondering what more she would do to make this happen.

  * * *

  —

  In the cold room, Tavo was sitting on a bench, hunched forward as he paged through a book of maps of the Four Lands. There were so many places to go, so many he had never been. He had spent years locked away from everything—first in his parents’ home, and then in his uncle’s shed. The memories of the latter stirred angrily for a few seconds before he chased them off, put the book aside
, and walked over to the scrye waters. He peered down into their depths, down into the darkness where the map of the Four Lands was lying in wait. He stared at it a moment. Had something moved just now?

  No, he decided. The waters were placid, their surface a reflective shimmer of his face and shoulder as he leaned close. Nothing was happening. Just as nothing had happened since the Druid and his sister had departed the room.

  He felt a fresh twinge of concern. Tarsha had said she was coming back, but she had said that before when he had been given to his uncle. By the time she had gotten around to coming, it was too late. The damage had been done. His body had been defiled and his mind twisted into knots. He knew she had good reasons for why she had failed him—after all, she had explained it to him endlessly. She was prevented from going to him by their parents, and then thought he didn’t want to see her after the one time she had actually managed to find him. Hadn’t he told her to go away? Of course he had, but it was the rage and shame and horror of his situation that had made him do it. Shouldn’t she have recognized this? Shouldn’t she have tried again after seeing how bad it was?

  The questions chased themselves around and around in his mind like trapped ferrets, though there was nothing playful about them. About any of it. He closed his eyes and tried to think of everything good she had told him about what he meant to her—about how important he was to her, about their relationship as brother and sister. But things were shifting inside him once again, more rapidly now since they had decided to come to Paranor. He could almost hear the old witch whispering to him, cajoling in words he did not understand but knew to be warnings. He could see her face clearly in his mind. He could see her smiling.

  He shoved away from the scrye bowl and went back to the bench, picking up the book of maps and paging through it once more. He took his time, letting his thoughts settle, envisioning some of the places on the map he thought he might like to visit. He tried to imagine what they might be like. Arishaig—that wondrous capital city of the Federation, that legendary site of so many famous battles. Sprawling and vast, filled with hundreds of thousands of people, all of them victims, like himself, of their own lives. What tales they could tell him! Wouldn’t it be good if they could share them? Might not that help him to find peace?

  There is no peace for you, Tavo.

  Words, whispered by a familiar voice. He startled in fear.

  Why do you pretend that things are as they should be when you know they are not?

  Fluken.

  “Go away. I don’t need you anymore. You aren’t even real.”

  His protestation was sharp, filled with a keen understanding of what it meant to listen to his old friend. His fake friend. His friend, who had abandoned him.

  Oh, I’m not real, am I? All those times we had together didn’t happen? All that advice I gave to help you find your way through the lies of those who betrayed you didn’t matter?

  Tavo buried his head in his hands, the book of maps falling to the floor. “Leave me alone!”

  You don’t mean that. You listened to the Druid’s advice. You succumbed to his magic wiles. Yet he does nothing for you.

  “You’re the one who does nothing for me! What have you ever done? You wanted me to kill people. You wanted me to hurt them and destroy them. You are a monster!”

  Not so, little boy. I think we know who the real monster is. So why don’t you admit it? Why don’t you see yourself as you really are and stop all this pretending?

  “No, no, no!”

  He was yelling the words as Tarsha and Drisker Arc walked through the doorway. They stopped instantly, staring at him. Fluken disappeared, his voice silenced. The room was deathly silent.

  “It was Fluken,” he blurted out, tears leaking from his eyes.

  Tarsha rushed to him, knelt to embrace him, and held him close. “It’s all right, Tavo. I’m here, just as I promised.” She paused. “Who is Fluken?”

  “No one. A voice, that’s all. Trying to trick me.”

  “You don’t need to listen to Fluken. Or any other voices. You don’t need to be afraid anymore. I’m here, and I won’t leave you.”

  He nodded into her shoulder. He believed her. He believed what she was telling him.

  And yet, at the same time, he didn’t.

  TWENTY-ONE

  CLIZIA PORSE WAITED THREE more days to act on the agreement she had made with Cor d’Amphere. It wasn’t that she wasn’t prepared to carry it out or didn’t know how to implement it. She had known that immediately after departing Paranor, leaving behind her dead Skaar companions. It was a trade he was making, after all. She had cost him twenty soldiers and likely all chance of getting inside the Druid’s Keep anytime soon, but what she was promising now was something of much greater value.

  She was promising that his two greatest enemies—the Federation and the Elves—would abandon any efforts to attack him once she had done as she promised.

  This was a bold guarantee to make, and one few others would even consider. But Clizia was made of tougher stuff than most, and once she set her mind to something, it took an awful lot for her to change it.

  What she needed to be sure of was exactly how many people she would have to kill in order to be sure her promise was maintained. Because if she failed again, the possibility of any support from the Skaar nation was finished. Another failure would ensure that her dreams of rebuilding the Druid order with herself as Ard Rhys were over and done with, and any reason for her to think her life had any meaning was nothing more than a sham.

  So she took the time she needed, requisitioned a Skaar fast flier called a Blister that was something on the order of a Sprint, and set out at sunrise of the third day for Arborlon. It was a calculated risk. Common sense would suggest she would be better off starting with the Federation and Ketter Vause, but that would likely prove a more difficult undertaking. If she neutralized the Elves first, it would free her from any threat they might offer and at the same time give Vause something to think about. That had a certain value. Frightened men tended to make mistakes. It was her belief that when it came time to visit him, he would make a big one. The only thing she had to determine was the form it would take.

  She did not like leaving Drisker free to search for her, especially with those with whom he had now allied himself. Dar Leah was bad enough; he was smart and intuitive and his blade was a weapon of real power. And that Elven prince had the use of the Blue Elfstones that might help to track her down. But it was the two very dangerous siblings that troubled her most. The girl was the real concern. The wishsong provided her with a weapon against which little could prevail. And her brother, of course, was insane—and insanity and magic mixed together were an explosive concoction. If they found her, she would have a difficult time escaping them again. She would likely have a difficult time even surviving the encounter.

  So she must not let them find her. They might think they would locate her in the Skaar camp, but they would never consider she might be going to Arborlon. Eventually, they would discover what she had planned, but by the time they did she would be finished with what she had come to do and on her way elsewhere.

  Even then, they might not immediately comprehend her intentions. But if they did, it would be too late. By then, she would have gone on to complete her plans and set the stage for what chaos would follow. They would come hunting for her, but they would not find her in time.

  And then there would be no stopping her.

  By then, she would be the one doing the hunting.

  She flew through the day and got as far as the eastern edge of the Streleheim before setting down to have dinner and get some sleep. She might have tried flying straight through, but that would have taken too much out of her and she needed to be fresh on her arrival. She nested inside the Blister, hunkered down in blankets to ward off the chill, protected by alarms that would warn of any approach to her craft. Sh
e stared up at the stars for a time, embittered by her failures and losses, but buoyed by a certainty that, this time, she would turn things around. The Skaar could be manipulated. Their king was a vain, ambitious man—an easier mark than his smart, calculating daughter—and he could be made to serve her interests once she got him to believe that she was the answer to all of his problems. She wondered a bit at the rapidity of Ajin’s fall. She had seemed so much in command of things, so favored by her father. But monarchs were capricious, and perhaps Ajin had been caught off guard.

  Something Clizia would not let happen, she promised herself as she drifted off to sleep.

  She resumed her journey at sunrise and arrived in Arborlon by midafternoon on the fourth day. She left her craft at the public airfield, and wrapped in her black cloak and cowl, an old woman of no consequence and little interest, she disappeared into the bowels of the Elven city.

  * * *

  —

  Crais Aquina was working in his leather shop on aprons and body padding for the metalworkers down at the armor factory when the door opened and the old woman walked in. He felt a twinge of fear and a certainty: This was the time he had been dreading since he had entered into the arrangement with her twenty years earlier. He was no longer a young man, and was now a husband and father. He would gladly take back what he had agreed to those twenty years ago now if it were possible.

  The old woman closed the door and locked it behind her, turning the sign that said OPEN to CLOSED. She gave him a sharp look. “Surprised?”