Терри Брукс - The Druid of Shannara

“They won’t find us until this storm ends,” she said.

Morgan nodded. “If then. There won’t be any trail to follow. Just the river.” He frowned. “Where are we, anyway? North or south of where we went into the river?”

“North and east,” she advised.

“You know that?”

She nodded. He could feel her breathing, the slight movement of her body against him. He was shivering, but having her close like this seemed to make up for it. He closed his eyes.

“You didn’t have to come after me,” she said suddenly. She sounded uncomfortable. “I would have been all right.”

He tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn. “I was due for a bath.”

“You could have been hurt, Morgan.”

“Not me. I’ve already survived attacks by Shadowen, Federation soldiers, Creepers, and other things I’d just as soon forget about. A fall into a river isn’t going to hurt me.”

The wind gusted sharply, howling through the branches of the trees, and they glanced skyward to listen. When the sound died away, they could hear the rush of the river again as it pounded against the shoreline.

Morgan hunched down within his sodden clothing. “When this storm blows itself out, we can swim to the mainland, get off this island. The river is too rough to try it now. And we’re too tired to make the attempt in any case. But that’s all right. We’re safe enough right here. Just a little damp.”

He realized that he was talking just to be doing something and went still again. Quickening did not respond. He could almost feel her thinking, but he hadn’t a clue as to what she was thinking about. He closed his eyes again and let his breathing slow. He wondered what had become of the others. Had they managed to make it safely down that trail or had the collapse of the ledge trapped Walker and Pe Ell on the upper slope? He tried to envision the Dark Uncle and the assassin trapped with each other and failed.

It was growing dark now, dusk chasing away what little light remained, and shadows began to spread across the island in widening black stains. The rains were slowing, the sounds of thunder and wind receding in the distance, and the storm was beginning to pass. The air was not cooling as Morgan had expected, but instead was growing warm again, thick with the smells of heat and humidity. Just as well, he thought. They were too cold as it was. He thought about what it would feel like to be warm and dry again, to be secluded in his hunting lodge in the Highlands with hot broth and a fire, seated on the floor with the Ohmsfords, swapping lies of what had never been.

Or seated perhaps with Quickening, saying nothing because speaking wasn’t necessary and just being together was enough, just touching...

The ache of what he was feeling filled him with both longing and fear. He wanted it to continue, wanted it to be there always, and at the same time he did not understand it and was certain that it would betray him.

“Are you awake?” he asked her, anxious suddenly for the sound of her voice.

“Yes,” she replied.

He took a deep breath and breathed out slowly. “I have been thinking about why I’m here,” he said. “Wondering about it since Culhaven. I haven’t any magic anymore—not really. All I ever had was contained in the Sword of Leah, and now it’s broken and what magic remains is small and probably won’t be of much help to you. So there’s just me, and I...” He stopped. “I just don’t know what it is that you expect of me, I guess.”

“Nothing,” she answered softly.

“Nothing?” He could not keep the incredulity from his voice.

“Only what you are able and wish to give,” she answered vaguely.

“But I thought that the King of the Silver River said...” He stopped. “I thought that your father said I was needed. Isn’t that what you said? That he told you we were needed, all of us?”

“He did not say what it was that you were to do, Morgan. He told me to bring you with me in my search for the talisman and that you would know what to do, that we all would.” She lifted away slightly and turned to look at him. “If I could tell you more, I would.”

He scowled at her, frustrated with the evasiveness of her answer, with the uncertainty he was feeling. “Would you?”

She almost smiled. Even rain-streaked and soiled by the river’s waters, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He tried to speak and failed. He simply sat there, mute and staring.

“Morgan,” she said softly. “My father sees things that are hidden from all others. He tells me what I must know of these things, and I trust him enough to believe that what he tells me is enough. You are here because I need you. It has something to do with the magic of your Sword. I was told by my father and told you in turn that you will have a chance to make the Sword whole again. Perhaps then it will serve us both in a way we cannot foresee.”

“And Pe Ell?” he pressed, determined now to know everything.

“Pe Ell?”

“Walker says he is an assassin—that he, too, carries a weapon of magic, a weapon that kills.”

She studied him for a long moment before she said, “That is true.”

“And he is needed, too?”

“Morgan.” His name was spoken as a caution.

“Tell me. Please.”

Her perfect features lowered into shadow and lifted again, filled with sadness. “Pe Ell is needed. His purpose, as yours, must reveal itself.”

Morgan hesitated, trying to decide what to ask next, desperate to learn the truth but unwilling to risk losing her by crossing into territory in which he was not welcome.

His face tightened. “I would not like to think that I had been brought along for the same reason as Pe Ell,” he said finally. “I am not like him.”

“I know that,” she said. She hesitated, wrestling with some inner demon. “I believe that each of you—Walker Boh included—is here for a different reason, to serve a different purpose. That is my sense of things.”

He nodded, anxious to believe her, finding it impossible not to do so. He said, “I just wish I understood more.”

She reached up and touched his cheek with her fingers, letting them slide down his jaw to his neck and lift away again. “It will be all right,” she said.

She lay back again, folding into him, and he felt his frustration and doubt begin to fade. He let them go without a fight, content just to hold the girl. It was dark now, daylight gone into the west, night settled comfortably over the land. The storm had moved east, and the rains had been reduced to mist. The clouds were still thick overhead but empty now of thunder, and a blanket of stillness lay across the land as if to cover a child preparing for sleep. In the invisible distance the Rabb continued to churn, a sullen, now sluggish flow that lulled and soothed with its wash. Morgan peered into the night without seeing, finding its opaque curtain lowered to enclose him, to wrap about him as if an invisible shroud. He breathed the clean air and let his thoughts drift free.

“I could eat something,” he mused after a time. “If there were anything to eat.”

Quickening rose without speaking, took his hands in hers, and pulled him up after her. Together, they walked into the darkness, picking their way through the damp grasses. She was able to see as he could not and led the way with a sureness that defied him. After a time she found roots and berries that they could eat and a plant that when properly cut yielded fresh water. They ate and drank what they found, crouched silently next to each other, saying nothing. When they were finished, she took him out to the riverbank where they sat in silence watching the Rabb flow past in the dim, mysterious half-light, a murky sheen of movement against the darker mainland.