Terry Brooks - Ilse Witch

There, a solitary figure silhouetted against the flat terrain, he stilled himself within to prepare for what would come next.

The waters of the Hadeshorn had taken on a different cast with his approach, shimmering now from just beneath the surface with light that did not reflect from the stars but emanated from some inner source. There was a sense of something stirring, coming awake and taking notice of his presence. He could feel it more than see it. He kept his focus on the lake, disdaining all else, knowing that any break in concentration once he began would doom his efforts and possibly cause him harm.

When he was at peace within and fully concentrated, he began the process of calling to the dead. He spoke softly, for it was not necessary that his voice carry, and gestured slowly, for precision counted more than speed. He spoke his name and of his history and need, motioning for the dead to respond, for the lake to give them up. As he did, the waters stirred visibly, swirling slowly in a clockwise motion, then churning more violently. Small cries rose from their depths, calling out in tiny, ethereal voices, whispers that turned to screams as thin as paper. The Hadeshorn hissed and boiled, releasing the cries in small fountains of spray, then in geysers that plumed hundreds of feet into the air. Light beneath the lake’s surface brightened and pulsed, and the valley shuddered.

Then a rumbling sounded from deep within the earth, and out of the roiling waters rose the spirits, white and transparent forms that climbed slowly into the air, linked by thin trailers of vapor, freed from their afterlife for a few precious moments to return to the earth they had left in dying. Their voices intertwined in a rising wail that made the Druid’s skin crawl and chilled the bones of his body. He held his ground against their advance, fighting down the part of him that screamed at him to back away, to turn aside, and to be afraid. They spiraled into the night sky, reaching for what was lost, seeking to recover what was denied. More and more of them appeared, filling the empty bowl of the valley until there was no space left.

Who calls? Who dares?

Then a huge, black shadow lifted from the waters and scattered the spirits like leaves, a cloaked form that took shape as it ascended, one arm stretching out to sweep aside the swarms of ghosts who lingered too close. The Hadeshorn churned and boiled in response to its coming, spray jetting everywhere, droplets falling on the Druid’s exposed face and hand. Walker lifted his arm in a warding gesture, and the cloaked figure turned toward him at once. Suspended in space, it began to lose some of its blackness, becoming more transparent, its human form showing through its dark coverings like bones exposed through flesh. Across the wave-swept surface it glided, taking up all the space about it as it came, drawing all the light to itself until there was nothing else.

When it was right on top of Walker, it stopped and hung motionless above him, cowled head inclining slightly, shadows obscuring its features. Flat and dispassionate, its voice flooded the momentary silence.

—What would you know of me—

Walker knelt before him, not in fear, but out of respect.

“Allanon,” he said, and waited for the shade to invite him to speak.

Farther west where the deep woods shrouded and sheltered the lives of its denizens as an ocean does its sea life, dawn approached in the Wilderun, as well. Within the old-growth trees, the light remained pale and insubstantial, even at high noon and on the brightest summer day. Shadows cloaked the world of the forest dwellers, and for the most part there was little difference between day and night. Long a wilderness to which few outsiders came, in which only those born to the life remained, and by which all other hardships were measured, the Wilderun was a haven for creatures for whom the absence of light was desirable.

The Ilse Witch was one such. Though born in another part of the Four Lands, where her past was bright with sunlight, she had long since adapted to and become comfortable with the twilight existence of her present. She had lived here nearly all of her life, which was to say since she was six. The Morgawr had brought her here when the Druid’s minions had killed her parents and tried to steal her away for their own use. He had given her his home, his protection, and his knowledge of magic’s uses so that she might grow to adulthood and discover who she was destined to be. The darkness in which she was raised suited her, but she never let herself become a slave to it.

Sometimes, she knew, you became dependent on the things that gave you comfort. She would never be one of those. Dependency on anything was for fools and weaklings.

On this night, working through the rudimentary drawings she had stolen from Kael Elessedil’s memories before dispatching him, she felt a stirring in the air that signaled the Morgawr’s return. He had been gone from their safehold for more than a week, saying little of his plans on departing, leaving her to her own devices pending his return. She was grown now, in his eyes as well as her own, and he did not feel the need to watch over her as he once had. He had never confided in her; that would have gone against his nature in so fundamental a way as to be unthinkable. He was a warlock, and therefore solitary and independent by nature. He had been alive for a very long time, living in his Hollows safehold deep within the heart of the Wilderun, not far from the promontory known as Spire’s Reach. Once, it was rumored, these same caverns had been occupied by the witch sisters, Mallenroh and Morag, before they destroyed each other. Once, it was rumored, the Morgawr had claimed them as his sisters. The Ilse Witch did not know if this was true; the Morgawr never spoke of it, and she knew better than to ask.

Dark magic thrived within the Wilderun, born of other times and peoples, of a world that flourished before the Great Wars. Magic rooted in the earth here, and the Morgawr drew his strength from its presence. He was not like her; he had not been born to the magic. He had gained his mastery through leeching it away and building it up, through study and experimentation, and through slow, torturous exposure to side effects that had changed him irrevocably from what he had been born.

Looking up from her work, the Ilse Witch saw the solitary candles set in opposite holders by the entry to the room flicker slightly. Shadows wavered and settled anew on the worn stone floor. She set aside the map and rose to greet him. Her gray robes fell about her slender form in a soft rustle, and she shook back her long dark hair from her childlike face and startling blue eyes. Just a girl, a visitor come upon her unexpectedly might have thought. Just a girl approaching womanhood. But she was nothing of that and hadn’t been for a long time. The Morgawr would not make such a mistake, although he had once. It took her only a heartbeat to set him straight, to let him know that she was a girl no longer, an apprentice no more, but a grown woman and his equal.

Things had not been the same between them since, and she sensed that they never would be again.

He appeared in the entry, all size and darkness within his long black cloak. His body was huge and muscular and still human in shape, but he was looking more and more like the Mwellrets with whom he spent so much of his time. His skin was scaly and gray and hairless. His features were blunt and unremarkable, and his eyes were reptilian. He could shape-shift like the rets, but far better and with greater versatility, for he had the magic to aid him. Numerous once, the rets had been reduced over the past five hundred years to a small community. They were secretive and manipulative of others, and perhaps that was why the Morgawr admired them so.