Терри Брукс - Tanequil

But she couldn't let him know that. She couldn't let him see her desperation. Giving Weka Dart that sort of power over her was too dangerous. He would take advantage of her as quickly as Tael Riverine had.

She took a deep breath. «Listen to me. You came here with the intention of trading or you wouldn't have come here at all. My word is good, Weka Dart. I keep my promises. So I will give you one now. If you tell me the truth about yourself, I will tell you if I can forgive you for your lies. Then you can decide if you still think it's worth it to try to trade what you want for my freedom.»

She hauled herself to her feet and with some effort stumbled over to where he stood. «What's it to be, little Ulk Bog? A bargain or a good–bye? I don't really care anymore.»

He stared at her some more, his yellow eyes nicking left and right, up and down, scanning the whole of her face, but never settling on any one part. She could see a glimmer of doubt and fear mirrored there. But she could also see hope.

He nodded. «Very well, Grianne of the many promises. I will tell you, even though I think all Strakens lie.» He spit again and shook his head. «I know who you are and where you come from. I always did. I know because I was Catcher for Tael Riverine before Hobstull was. I would be Catcher still if the Straken Lord hadn't decided I had lost my skills. He was wrong, but there is no arguing with a Straken. So he replaced me. But not before he humiliated me in ways I will never discuss, so don't ask it of me.»

He swallowed hard. «He took me in when I was driven from my tribe for eating my young. He cared nothing for any of that, only for what I could do for him. He recognized my skills and offered me a place at Kraal Reach as his Catcher. He knew that I would accept, that I had to because I could not survive alone and unprotected in the world of the Jarka Ruus. He gave me what I needed, but then he took everything back when he cast me out. So I vowed that I would take everything from him in turn.»

His voice grew fierce. «The plans to bring you here have been in place for some time. Tael Riverine would swap you for his changeling creature, the Moric. Easy enough for a Straken of his power. I decided to disrupt his plans by getting to you first, which I did. I intended to take you away from him, to steal you out from under his nose. I intended to embarrass Hobstull and reveal him to the Straken Lord as a failure! Then I would produce you and regain my rightful place!»

He was breathing hard, his eyes become narrow slits, his throat working rapidly as he sought to gauge her reaction. She gave him nothing, listening blank–faced and empty–eyed, her talent as the Use Witch resurfacing from where she had kept it buried for twenty years. Soeasy to call it up again, she thought. Soeasy to go back to being what I was.

«My plan failed when you refused to come with me," Weka Dart continued. «Failed completely. I tried everything. But you were so insistent on going your own way! And I couldn't change your mind without giving myself away!» He shook his head. «So I let you go. I said,If that is what she wants, then give it to her! See bow well she does without you! Walk away from the Straken and nothing is lost! I wasn't going to risk my life following after you when I knew what would happen. Hob–stull was looking, and it was only a matter of time until he found you. He didn't know exactly where you would appear, only that you would. But I knew! I knew, because I have always been better able to read the signs of such things! I have always been the better Catcher!»

He spit the words out and flung himself away from the cell bars, dropping to the floor in a crouch, refusing to look at her. She watched him for a moment, her mind working through the choices his revelations had given her.

«Weka Dart," she said.

He stayed where he was.

«Look at me.»

He refused, turned away, and hunched down.

«Look at me. Tell me what you see in my eyes.»

Finally, he turned just enough to glance over his shoulder and make momentary eye contact, then looked away again.

«I am not angry with you," she said. «You did what I would have done if our positions had been reversed. In fact, once upon a time, when I was a different person living a different life, 1 did things much worse to others than what you have done to me.»

He looked back at her once more.

«I don't hate you," she told him.

«You should.» His teeth clicked as his jaws snapped shut.

«My hate is reserved for others more deserving and less forthcoming about their efforts to see me dead and gone.» She gestured for him to come back. 'Tell me the rest of what you know.»

He stayed where he was a moment longer, then sighed, rose, and came back to stand in front of her. «You don't hate me? If you were free, you wouldn't try to kill me?»

She shook her head. «I don't hate you. Even if I had the chance to do so, I wouldn't try to kill you. Now tell me the rest. Do you know the Straken Lord's plans?»

The Ulk Bog nodded. «I was here at Kraal Reach when he was making them.» He looked closely at her. «You still don't know what he intends? You haven't seen the way he looks at you?»

She went cold all the way to her bones, the little man's words conjuring up an image that froze her blood. «Tell me.»

«He has been testing you to see if you are a suitable vessel to bear his children. He wishes to mate with you.»

For the first time, she was really afraid. The demon was anathema to her. She could think of no worse fate than to be the mother of its children, the mother of demonkind, a bearer of monsters. She had never considered the possibility. She had never recognized that the Straken Lord had any interest in her beyond keeping her imprisoned and alive until its creature, the Moric, could do whatever it had been sent to do in her own world.

«This was the reason for bringing me here?» she managed to ask, working hard to keep her voice steady.

Weka Dart shook his head, his gimlet eyes glittering. «No. The idea must have occurred to him after you were his prisoner. His plans are much grander than that.»

«How much grander?»

The Ulk Bog leaned close. «He has been searching for a way to send the Moric into your world for some time. But for that to happen, it was necessary to find someone in your world willing to help. He found those people, and he used them as his tool. Whoever they were had no idea what the Straken Lord intended, but were only interested in disposing of you. That was what your betrayer knew that using the magic would banish you to the world of the Jarka Ruus. That, and nothing more. Your betrayers knew nothing of the exchange, nothing of the way the magic really worked, nothing of the trade that was necessary to bring you here. The Straken Lord was careful to keep that secret hidden.»

Aswell it should have been, she thought. But she wasn't sure that knowing a trade was required would have stopped whoever was desperate enough to send her into the Forbidding.

«But why was I brought here if not to mate with Tael Riverine?» she pressed.

«You miss the point, Straken!» Weka Dart snapped. «Bringing you here was never what mattered! What mattered was sending the Moric into your world!»

She shook her head. «Why?»

«So that it could destroy the barrier that keeps us locked away! So that it could free the Jarka Ruus!»

Now she understood. The Moric had been sent to complete the task that the Dagda Mor had failed to accomplish more than five hundred years earlier—to break down the walls of the prison behind which the dark things of Faerie had been shut since before the dawn of Man.

Her mind raced. To do that, it would have to destroy the Ellcrys, the magic–born Elven tree that had been created to ward the Forbidding. How would it manage that, when the tree was always so closely guarded?