Терри Брукс - The Druid of Shannara

They made camp beside the ruins of the cottage that night, backed into the shelter of the trees as the light gave way to darkness. Quickening had a fire built close to where Walker Boh lay sleeping and she took up a position at his side and did not move. Sometimes she held his hand; sometimes she stroked him. Morgan and Pe Ell were forgotten. She did not seem to have need of them or wish that they intrude, so the Highlander built a second fire some distance away and prepared dinner from the supplies they carried—bread, some dried meat, cheese, and fruit. He offered some to the girl, but she shook her head and he moved away. He ate alone. Pe Ell took his food off into the dark.

After a time Quickening lay down next to Walker Boh and went to sleep, her body pressed close against his. Morgan watched stone-faced, a surge of jealousy sweeping through him at the thought that the Dark Uncle should be so close to her. He studied her face in the firelight, the curve of her body, the softness of her. She was so beautiful. He could not explain the effect she had on him; he did not think he could refuse her anything. It wasn’t that he had a reasonable hope that she felt for him as he did for her—or even that she felt anything for him. It was the need she roused in him. He should not have come with her once he had escaped the prisons and made certain that Granny Elise and Auntie Jilt were safe. He should have gone after the Valemen, after Par and Coll Ohmsford. He had promised himself more than once while lying in the darkness and filth of that Federation cell that if he ever got free, he would. Yet here he was, chasing off into the deep Anar after this girl, searching out a talisman she said existed but hadn’t once described, caught up with the enigmatic Pe Ell and now Walker Boh. It baffled him, but he didn’t question it. He was there because he wanted to be there. He was there because the moment he had met Quickening he had fallen hopelessly in love with her.

He watched her until it hurt, then forced himself to look away. He was surprised when he saw Pe Ell standing back in the shadows at the edge of the trees watching too.

He was surprised again moments later when the other man came over to sit next to him by the fire. Pe Ell made it seem the most natural thing in the world, as if there had been no distance kept between them before, as if they were companions and not strangers. Hatchet-faced, as lean as a wire’s shadow, he was not much more than a gathering of lines and angles that threatened to disappear in the dark. He sat cross-legged, his thin frame relaxed, hunched down, his mouth breaking into a faint smile as he saw Morgan frown. “You don’t trust me,” he said. “You shouldn’t.”

Morgan said, “Why not?”

“Because you don’t know me and you never trust anyone you don’t know. You don’t trust most of those you do either. That’s just the way it is. Tell me, Highlander. Why do you think I’m here?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t know either. I would be willing to bet that it is the same with you. We’re here, you and I, because the girl tells us she needs us, but we really don’t know what she means. It’s just that we can’t bring ourselves to tell her no.” Pe Ell seemed to be explaining things as much to himself as to Morgan. He glanced Quickening’s way briefly, nodding. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she? How can you say no to someone who looks like that? But it’s more, because she has something inside as well, something special even in this world. She has magic, the strongest kind of magic. She brings dead things back to life—like the Gardens, like that one over there.”

He looked back at Morgan. “We all want to touch that magic, to feel it through her. That’s what I think. Maybe we can, if we’re lucky. But if the Shadowen are involved in this, if there are things as bad as that to be dealt with, why then we’re going to have to look out for one another. So you don’t have to trust me or me you—maybe we shouldn’t—but we have to watch each other’s backs. Do you agree?”

Morgan wasn’t sure whether he did or not, but he nodded anyway. What he thought was that Pe Ell didn’t seem the kind who relied on anyone to watch his back. Or who watched anyone else’s back either, for that matter.

“Do you know what I am?” Pe Ell asked softly, looking down into the fire. “I am a craftsman. I get myself in and out of places without anyone knowing. I move things aside that don’t want to be moved. I make people disappear.” He looked up. “I have a little magic of my own. You do, too, don’t you?”

Morgan shook his head, cautious. “There’s the man with the magic,” he offered, indicating Walker Boh.

Pe Ell smiled doubtfully. “Doesn’t seem to have done him much good against the Shadowen.”

“It might have kept him alive.”

“Barely, it appears. And what use is he to us with that arm?” Pe Ell folded his hands carefully. “Tell me. What can he do with his magic?”

Morgan didn’t like the question. “He can do a lot of what you do. Ask him yourself when he’s better.”

“If he gets better.” Pe Ell stood up smoothly, an effortless motion that caught Morgan by surprise. Quick, the Highlander thought. Much quicker than me. The other was looking at him. “I sense the magic in you, Highlander. I want you to tell me about it sometime. Later, when we’ve traveled together a bit longer, when we know each other a little better. When you trust me.”

He moved away into the shadows at the fire’s edge, spread his blanket on the ground, and rolled into it. He was asleep almost at once.

Morgan sat staring at him for a moment, thinking it would be a long time before he trusted that one. Pe Ell smiled easily enough, but it seemed that only his mouth wanted to participate in the act. Morgan thought about what the man had said about himself, trying to make sense of it. Get in and out of places without being seen? Move things that don’t want to be moved? Make people disappear? What sort of double-talk was that?

The fire burned low and everyone around him slept. Morgan thought about the past for a moment, about his friends who were dead or disappeared, about the inexorable flow of events that was dragging him along in its wake. Mostly he thought about the girl who said she was the daughter of the King of the Silver River. Quickening. He wondered about her.

What was she going to ask of him?

What was he going to be able to give?

Walker Boh came awake at sunrise, rising up from the black pit of his unconsciousness. His eyes blinked open to find the girl peering down at him. Her hands were on his face, her fingers cool and soft against his skin, and it seemed that she drew him up with no more effort than it would require to lift a feather.

“Walker Boh,” she spoke his name gently.

She seemed strangely familiar to him although he was certain they had never met. He tried to speak and found he couldn’t. Something forbade it, a sense of wonder at the exquisite beauty of her, at the feelings she invoked within him. He found her like the earth, filled with strange magic that was simple and complex at once, a vessel of elements, of soil, air, and water, a part of everything that gave life. He saw her differently than Morgan Leah and Pe Ell, though he couldn’t know that yet. He was not drawn to her as a lover or a protector; he had no wish to possess her. Rather, there was an affinity between them that transcended passion and need. There were bonds of immediate understanding that united them as emotions never could. Walker recognized the existence of those bonds even without being able to define them. This girl was something of what he had struggled all his life to be. This girl was a reflection of his dreams.

“Look at me,” she said.