Quickening told the Highlander that among those who had come with her to the cottage was one who would be able to discover what had become of the Dwarf ladies. He would make certain that they were well. She would ask him to do so immediately.
“Then if you truly need me, I will come with you,” Morgan Leah promised her.
Pe Ell turned away. The Highlander was coming because he had no choice, because the girl had captured him. He could see it in the youth’s eyes; he would do anything for her. Pe Ell understood that feeling. He shared something of it as well. The only difference between them was what they intended to do about it.
Pe Ell wondered again what it would feel like when he finally killed the girl. He wondered what he would discover in her eyes.
Quickening guided Morgan toward her bed so that he could rest. Pe Ell departed the room in silence and walked out of the cottage into the light. He stood there with his eyes closed and let the sun’s warmth bathe his face.
Coll Ohmsford was a prisoner at Southwatch for eight days before he discovered who had locked him away. His cell was the whole of his world, a room twenty feet square, high within the black granite tower, a stone-and-mortar box with a single metal door that never opened, a window closed off by metal shutters, a sleeping mat, a wooden bench, and a small table with two chairs. Light filtered through the shutters in thin, gray shafts when it was daytime and disappeared when it was night. He could peer through the cracks in the shutters and see the blue waters of the Rainbow Lake and the green canopy of the trees. He could catch glimpses of birds flying, cranes and terns and gulls, and he could hear their solitary cries.
Sometimes he could hear the howl of the wind blowing down out of the Runne through the canyons that channeled the Mermidon. Once or twice he could hear the howling of wolves.
Cooking smells reached him now and then, but they never seemed to emanate from the food that he was fed. His food came on a tray shoved through a hinged flap at the bottom of the iron door, a furtive delivery that lacked any discernible source. The food was consumed, and the trays remained where he stacked them by the door. There was a constant humming sound from deep beneath the castle, a sort of vibration that at first suggested huge machinery, then later something more akin to an earth tremor. It carried through the stone of the tower, and when Coll placed his hands against the walls, he could feel the stone shiver. Everything was warm, the walls and floor, the door and window, the stone and mortar and metal. He didn’t know how that could be with the nights sometimes chill enough to cause the air to bite, but it was. Sometimes he thought he could hear footsteps beyond his door—not when the food was delivered, but at other times when everything was still and the only other sound was the buzz of insects in the distant trees. The footsteps did not approach, but passed on without slowing. Nor did they seem to have an identifiable source; they might as easily come from below or above as without.
He could feel himself being watched, not often, but enough so that he was aware. He could feel someone’s eyes fixed on him, studying him, waiting perhaps. He could not determine from where the eyes watched; it felt as if they watched from everywhere. He could hear breathing sometimes, but when he tried to listen for it he could hear only his own.
He spent most of his time thinking, for there was little else to do. He could eat and sleep; he could pace his cell and look through the cracks in the shutters. He could listen; he could smell and taste the air. But thinking was best, he found, an exercise that kept his mind sharp and free. His thoughts, at least, were not prisoners. The isolation he experienced threatened to overwhelm him, for he was closed away from everything and everyone he knew, without reason or purpose that he could discern, and by captors that kept themselves carefully hidden. He worried for Par so greatly that at times he nearly wept. He felt as if the rest of the world had forgotten him, had passed him by. Events were happening without him; perhaps everything he once knew had changed. Time stretched away in a slow, endless succession of seconds and minutes and hours and, after a while, days as well. He was lost in shadows and half-light and near-silence, his existence empty of meaning.
Thinking kept him together.
He thought constantly of how he might escape. The door and window were solidly seated in the stone of the fortress tower and the walls and floor were thick and impenetrable. He lacked even the smallest digging tool in any event. He tried listening for those who patroled without, but the effort proved futile. He tried catching sight of those who delivered his meals, but they never revealed themselves. Escape seemed impossible.
He thought as well about what he might do to let someone know he was there. He could force a bit of cloth or a scrap of paper with a message scrawled on it through the cracks in the shutters of the window, but to what end? The wind would likely carry it away to the lake or the mountains and no one would ever find it. Or at least not in time to make any difference. He thought he might yell, but he knew he was so far up and away from any travelers that they would never hear him. He peered at the countryside unfailingly when it was light and never saw a single person. He felt himself to be completely alone.
He turned his thoughts finally to envisioning what was taking place beyond his door. He tried using his senses and when that failed, his imagination. His captors assumed multiple identities and behavioral patterns. Plots and conspiracies sprang to life, fleshed out with the details of their involvement of him. Par and Morgan, Padishar Creel and Damson Rhee, Dwarves, Elves, and Southlanders alike came to the black tower to free him. Brave rescue parties sallied forth. But all efforts failed. No one could reach him. Eventually, everyone gave up trying. Beyond the walls of Southwatch, life went on, uncaring.
After a week of this solitary existence, Coll Ohmsford began to despair.
Then, on the eighth day of his captivity, Rimmer Dall appeared.
It was late afternoon, gray and rainy, storm clouds low and heavy across the skies, lightning a wicked spider’s web flashing through the creases, thunder rolling out of the darkness in long, booming peals. The summer air was thick with smells brought alive by the damp, and it felt chill within Coll’s cell. He stood close against the shuttered window, peering out through the cracks in the fittings, listening to the sound of the Mermidon as it churned through the canyon rocks below.
When he heard the lock on the door to his room release he did not turn at first, certain that he must be mistaken. Then he saw the door begin to open, caught sight of the movement out of the corner of his eye, and wheeled about instantly.
A cloaked form appeared, tall and dark and forbidding, lacking face or limbs, seemingly a wraith come out of the night. Coll’s first thought was of the Shadowen, and he dropped into a protective crouch, frantically searching his suddenly diminished cell for a weapon with which to defend himself.
“Don’t be frightened, Valeman,” the wraith soothed in an oddly familiar, whispery voice. “You are in no danger here.”
The wraith closed the door behind it and stepped into the room’s faint light. Coll saw by turns the black clothing marked with a white wolf’s head, the left hand gloved to the elbow, and the rawboned, narrow face with its distinctive reddish beard.
Rimmer Dall.
Instantly Coll thought of the circumstances of his capture. He had gone with Par, Damson, and the Mole through the tunnels beneath Tyrsis into the abandoned palace of the old city’s kings, and from there the Ohmsford brothers had gone on alone into the Pit in search of the missing Sword of Shannara. He had stood guard outside the entry to the vault that was supposed to contain the Sword, keeping watch while his brother went inside. It was the last time he had seen Par. He had been seized from behind, rendered unconscious, and spirited away. Until now he had not known who was responsible. It made sense that it should be Rimmer Dall, the man who had come for them weeks ago in Varfleet and hunted them ever since across the length and breadth of the Four Lands.
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