Terry Brooks: High Druid's Blade

“It doesn’t change what happened. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t answer for it.”

Arcannen sighed. “You have an answer for everything, don’t you? How simple the world must seem to you–all black and white.” He paused, shaking his head in dismay. “How did you find out I was here in the first place? How did you even know I would come back so soon?”

Paxon shook his head. “I didn’t. I came here to find something to help Chrysallin.”

The sorcerer nodded. “Mischa’s subversion. I’d forgotten about that. You took your sister to Paranor? What happened?”

“She attacked the Ard Rhys.”

“That was what I intended. Only she was supposed to use the Stiehl, and she didn’t have it with her.”

“So it would have been the Ard Rhys who died, not Starks.” He lowered his sword and leaned on it. “Well, because of what you and Mischa did, my sister is now catatonic. I came back to find something to undo the damage.”

Arcannen nodded. “Take away the bad dreams. Make her forget the gray–haired Elven woman and all the torture that never happened. Her belief that she was physically damaged when she wasn’t.” He took a deep breath and exhaled sharply. “I can give you that, Paxon.”

Paxon straightened. “What? What did you say?”

“You heard me. I can make your sister well again. I have an antidote that will do so. Do you want it? Then, I’ll make you a bargain. The antidote for my freedom.”

Paxon was incensed. “I’m not going to do that!”

“I give you a potion that will make your sister well, and you let me go free. Why not?”

“I’m not letting you go!” the Highlander screamed in rage. “You’re not getting away again.”

The sorcerer shrugged. “If you want your sister back, you should think it over. That potion is the only thing that can help her, and I’m the only one who has it now that Mischa is dead.” He smiled. “You did this to yourself, you know.”

Paxon almost attacked him anew. But he kept thinking about why he had come back in the first place and of what Leofur had kept reminding him. He had not come back to find Arcannen, but to save Chrys.

“You’re lying,” he snapped. He lifted his black blade, held it ready. “You would say anything to save yourself!”

“I have the potion you need, Paxon Leah. That is not a lie; it is the truth. Do you want your sister back or will it make you feel better to see my head spiked on Paranor’s walls? It’s your choice. But you have to decide.”

Paxon shook his head. “No. I can’t let you go.”

“Well, you don’t exactly have me pinned to the ground yet, do you?” Arcannen lifted his flaming sword anew, readying himself. “Besides, there will be another day for you and me. Another time. Even if we don’t settle it now, don’t you think we will end up settling it eventually?”

Paxon did think so. It seemed inevitable.

He hesitated.

When he returned for Leofur, she was just coming out the front door of Dark House, as battered and smoke–blackened as he was, her hair all wild and spiky. Carrying her flash rip tucked under her cloak, she stepped clear of the building’s walls with a quick look behind her and walked down the steps into the roadway to meet him.

For a moment, they just stood there. “Did you get him?” she asked.

He shook his head. “He got away.” Then he grimaced. “Actually, I let him go.”

She stared at him, her eyes surprised and wondering. “Why?”

He sighed. “Because he agreed to give me this in return.”

He reached into his pocket and brought out the tiny bottle the sorcerer had found for him when they returned to Mischa’s rooms. The witch had indeed hidden her potions and elixirs with magic, but Arcannen had known right where they were and how to reveal them.

“He said it would make Chrys forget all the bad things that happened to her, and that she would come back to herself.” He hesitated. “You’re going to tell me he was lying, aren’t you?”

Leofur shrugged, then shook her head. “He probably wasn’t. Even though he has dozens of other unpleasant characteristics, he tends to be truthful. He doesn’t see any reason not to be. Besides, I don’t think he wants to come up against you again right away, and you’d hunt him down if he lied.”

“I’ll hunt him down anyway.”

She nodded. “You made the right choice.”

“I hope so. I hope he didn’t deceive me. But you know him better than I do.”

“I know him better than anyone.”

He felt a surge of renewed disappointment and unhappiness.

“Because you were his …” He couldn’t finish. He couldn’t make himself say it.

“Because I was his what ?” she asked, frowning.

“His …” He stopped again. “His lover.”

She almost laughed, a grin spreading over her features. “Is that what you think? Well, think again, Paxon Leah. I was as special as anyone could be to a man like him.” She reached out and gripped his shoulder hard. “Because I’m his daughter.”

SHE TOLD THIS TO NO ONE IN THE YEARS FOLLOWING HER DEPARTURE from her father and Dark House and the beginning of her life as caregiver for Grehling. Few who lived outside the walls of the building had ever seen her; fewer still knew who she was. During her early years, she was kept tucked away in rooms of her own and not allowed outside the building without an escort. She was fed, clothed, and educated in the manner of girls who were fortunate enough to enjoy a better social standing in the city, but she was denied their companionship. Dark House was her home, but it was also her prison.

She never knew her mother; she never even found out what happened to her. Her mother was simply never there, and no one would talk about her. She was raised by the women who worked for her father, raised in a home where strange men came and went by the hour, raised in dark and oppressive and carefully guarded surroundings that, by the end of things, she came to hate. She might have grown up there, but by the time she left to help look after and raise Grehling, she had come to realize the truth about her father.

“So that’s how you got us into Dark House so easily,” Paxon said. “They knew who you were because that’s where you grew up.”

They were walking back to the airfield, Paxon getting ready to leave for Paranor and the Druids.

“Some of them did. I feel badly about deceiving Fentrick. He used to play with me as a child. He and I were great friends at a time when I had no other friends. Now that’s gone.”

“You did it for me,” the Highlander acknowledged. “I am very grateful.”

“Don’t think you’re so special, Paxon,” she said quickly. “I did it because it was the right thing to do. I knew when Grehling brought Chrysallin to my front door that if I let them inside, I was crossing a line. Everything would change, and the past–maybe all of it–would be wiped away. I made that choice. That’s all.”

“Was it your father who gave you the flash rip?” he asked

“He thought I needed better protection living away from Dark House. He made me promise never to tell anyone I had it. That’s all I really want to say about it just now. I would appreciate it if you didn’t say anything to Grehling. He thinks a lot of me, and he might have a hard time understanding. I already told him I had nothing to do with Arcannen.”

Paxon nodded. “I won’t say anything to him or anyone else. There’s no need. I’m just glad you’re all right. I was worried when I saw you slammed into that wall. By your own father.”

“My own father regards me as a failed experiment. I am an embarrassment to him. He wants me to be his daughter, and he can’t understand why that is so difficult for me.”