Terry Brooks - The Scions of Shannara

“I think that woodswoman was genuinely afraid of the old man,” Par was saying as they climbed a long, gradual slope into a stand of ash. “I don’t think she was pretending. No one’s that good an actor.”

Coll nodded. “I think you’re right. I just said all that earlier about the two of them being in league to make you think. I can’t help wondering, though, if the old man is telling us everything he knows. What I mostly remember about Allanon in the stories is that he was decidedly circumspect in his dealings with the Ohmsfords.”

“He never told them everything, that’s true.”

“So maybe the old man is the same way.”

They crested the hill, moved into the shade of the ash trees, dropped their rolled up blankets wearily and stood looking out at the Highlands. Both were sweating freely, their tunics damp against their backs.

“We won’t make Shady Vale tonight,” Par said, settling to the ground against one of the trees.

“No, it doesn’t look like it.” Coll joined him, stretching until his bones cracked.

“I was thinking.”

“Good for you.”

“I was thinking about where we might spend the night. It would be nice to sleep in a bed for a change.”

Coll laughed. “You won’t get any argument out of me. Got any idea where we can find a bed out here in the middle of nowhere?”

Par turned slowly and looked at him. “Matter-of-fact, I do. Morgan’s hunting lodge is just a few miles south. I bet we could borrow it for the night.”

Coll frowned thoughtfully. “Yes, I bet we could.”

Morgan Leah was the eldest son in a family whose ancestors had once been Kings of Leah. But the monarchy had been overthrown almost two hundred years ago when the Federation had expanded northward and simply consumed the Highlands in a single bite. There had been no Leah Kings since, and the family had survived as gentlemen farmers and craftsmen over the years. The current head of the family, Kyle Leah, was a landholder living south of the city who bred beef cattle. Morgan, his oldest son, Par and Coll’s closest friend, bred mostly mischief.

“You don’t think Morgan will be around, do you?” Coll asked, grinning at the possibility.

Par grinned back. The hunting lodge was really a family possession, but Morgan was the one who used it the most. The last time the Ohmsford brothers had come into the Highlands they had stayed for a week at the lodge as Morgan’s guests. They had camped, hunted and fished, but mostly they had spent their time recounting tales of Morgan’s ongoing efforts to cause distress to the members of the Federation government-in-residence at Leah. Morgan Leah had the quickest mind and the fastest pair of hands in the Southland, and he harbored an abiding dislike for the army that occupied his land. Unlike Shady Vale, Leah was a major city and required watching. The Federation, after abolishing the monarchy, had installed a provisional governor and cabinet and stationed a garrison of soldiers to insure order. Morgan regarded that as a personal challenge. He took every opportunity that presented itself, and a few that didn’t, to make life miserable for the officials that now lodged comfortably and without regard for proper right of ownership in his ancestral home. It was never a contest. Morgan was a positive genius at disruption and much too sharp to allow the Federation officials to suspect he was the thorn in their collective sides that they could not even find, let alone remove. On the last go around, Morgan had trapped the governor and vice-governor in a private bathing court with a herd of carefully muddied pigs and jammed all the locks on the doors. It was a very small court and a whole lot of pigs. It took two hours to free them all, and Morgan insisted solemnly that by then it was hard to tell who was who.

The brothers regained their feet, hoisted their packs in place, and set off once more. The afternoon slipped away as the sun followed its path westward, but the air stayed quiet and the heat grew even more oppressive. The land at this elevation at midsummer was so arid that the grass crackled where they walked, the once-green blades dried to a brownish gray crust. Dust curled up in small puffs beneath their boots, and their mouths grew dry.

It was nearing sunset by the time they caught sight of the hunting lodge, a stone-and-timber building set back in a grouping of pines on a rise that overlooked the country west. Hot and sweating, they dumped their gear by the front door and went directly to the bathing springs nestled in the trees a hundred yards back. When they reached the springs, a cluster of clear blue pools that filled from beneath and emptied out into a sluggish little stream, they began stripping off their clothes immediately, heedless of anything but their by now overwhelming need to sink down into the inviting water.

Which was why they didn’t see the mud creature until it was almost on top of them.

It rose up from the bushes next to them, vaguely manlike, encrusted in mud and roaring with a ferocity that shattered the stillness like glass. Coll gave a howl, sprang backward, lost his balance and rumbled headfirst into the springs. Par jerked away, tripped and rolled, and the creature was on top of him.

“Ahhhh! A tasty Valeman!” the creature rasped in a voice that was suddenly very familiar.

“Shades, Morgan!” Par twisted and turned and shoved the other away. “You scared me to death, confound it!”

Coll pulled himself out of the springs, still wearing boots and pants halfway off, and said calmly, “I thought it was only the Federation you intended to drive out of Leah, not your friends.” He heaved himself up and brushed the water from his eyes.

Morgan Leah was laughing merrily from within his mud cocoon. “I apologize, I really do. But it was an opportunity no man could resist. Surely you can understand that!”

Par tried to wipe the mud from his clothes and finally gave up, stripping bare and carrying everything into the springs with him. He gave a sigh of relief, then glanced back at Morgan. “What in the world are you doing anyway?”

“Oh, the mud? Good for your skin.” Morgan walked to the springs and lowered himself into the water gingerly. “There are mud baths about a mile back. I found them the other day quite by accident. Never knew they were here. I can tell you honestly that there is nothing like mud on your body on a hot day to cool you down. Better even than the springs. So I rolled about quite piglike, then hiked back here to wash off. That was when I heard you coming and decided to give you a proper Highlands greeting.”

He ducked down beneath the water; when he surfaced, the mud monster had been replaced by a lean, sinewy youth approximately their own age with skin so sun-browned it was almost the color of chocolate, shoulder-length reddish hair, and clear gray eyes that looked out of a face that was at once both clever and guileless. “Behold!” he exclaimed and grinned.

“Marvelous,” Par replied tonelessly.

“Oh, come now! Not every trick can be earth-shattering. Which reminds me.” Morgan bent forward questioningly. He spent much of his time wearing an expression that suggested he was secretly amused about something, and he showed it to them now. “Aren’t you two supposed to be up in Callahorn somewhere dazzling the natives? Wasn’t that the last I heard of your plans? What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” Coll shot back.

“Me? Oh, just another little misunderstanding involving the governor—or more accurately, I’m afraid, the governor’s wife. They don’t suspect me, of course—they never do. Still, it seemed a good time for a vacation.” Morgan’s grin widened. “But come on now, I asked you first. What’s going on?”

He was not to be put off and there had never been any unshared secrets among the three in any case, so Par, with considerable help from Coll, told him what had happened to them since that night in Varfleet when Rimmer Dall and the Federation Seekers had come looking for them. He told him of the dreams that might have been sent by Allanon, of their encounter with the frightening woodswoman who might have been one of the Shadowen, and of the old man who had saved them and might have been Cogline.