Darren Shan - Bec

“Very well,” I sigh. “But I don’t want you rooting around inside my head too long. Find what you need, then get out. If not, I’ll fight.”

Drust nods, smiling wryly. Then, without slowing, he takes hold of my left hand and directs his thoughts towards me. I feel his presence immediately, as if he’d opened a door into my mind and stepped through. His magic washes into me, seeping through my skin. Most of it is directed through his fingers but it comes from other places too—legs, chest, head. His power is like a cloud wrapped around me, swallowing me, tasting and testing me. Soon it’s as if there are two people sharing one body. My thoughts are his, my past, my dreams, my magic.

I stiffen but don’t stop walking. Movement gives me a notion of separation. I’m still aware of my individual self, who I am, who I was, who I hope to be. If I stop, I’m afraid Drust will become me and I’ll lose myself to him completely.

He presses further into my mind, searching, exploring the well of my magic. He’s already deeper within me than Banba ever got, discovering truths which nobody knows, my secret wishes and desires, my hopes, loves and fears. And still he doesn’t stop. He keeps going, working on the part of me that is pure magic, dragging himself down towards my core, deeper and deeper, searching…

Something flares within me. I feel a bolt of lethal power shoot towards Drust. I know it will kill him upon contact but I can’t stop it. It’s coming from a place I can’t control, that I didn’t know was there. The bolt flies straight at Drust, increasing in power. It’s going to kill him! It will blow him apart! It—

Suddenly, he isn’t there. Contact has been broken. He throws himself away physically, mind following, disappearing from my thoughts, crying out in pain, but not the sort of pain that accompanies death.

I cry out too and drop, head on fire, screaming, feeling the bolt of power explode into nothingness, tearing at the rim of my mind but not damaging me, not like it would have damaged— destroyed—Drust.

Bright lights. Stars. Then a red haze. When it clears, everyone’s around Drust and me. Concerned for me, wary of the druid. Ronan and Lorcan have him at sword point, even though he’s rolled up into a ball and isn’t moving. Connla’s behind them, testing his own sword’s edge, eyes flicking from one twin to the other. Fiachna’s studying my face, rolling my eyelids up, making sure I’m all right. Bran is close by, anxiously chewing his lower lip.

“I’m fine,” I mutter, pushing Fiachna away—my skin is more sensitive than it’s ever been. His touch is painful.

“What did he do?” Ronan asks, positioning the tip of his sword by Drust’s throat, ready to slice it open and end his life the second I give him an excuse.

“Put down that sword,” Connla growls, unexpectedly coming to the druid’s aid. “Don’t harm him.”

“I will if he’s hurt her!” Ronan snaps.

“He didn’t,” I gasp. I want to lie down and rest, but I’m afraid they’ll kill Drust if I don’t speak up. “We were… working on a spell. It went wrong. He was trying to help me, not harm me.”

The others look relieved, except Ronan, who looks annoyed at being denied his kill. They sheathe their weapons. Goll asks how long it will take for Drust to recover and when we’ll be ready to continue. I tell him I don’t know and ask them to leave us alone for a while. When they’re out of earshot, I slide over next to Drust and whisper, “Can you hear me?”

A long pause, then a very shaky, “Aye.”

“What happened?” I hiss.

Drust rolls on to his side and stretches out slowly. There are burn marks on his right hand, ugly welts. There are red lines etched across his temple too, as though flames had shot up from his hand to his head.

“I was right,” he croaks.

“About what?”

“The source of your magic.” His fingers twitch and he winces. It hurts but I lean forward and cast a healing spell on his hand. As the worst of the redness cools away, Drust looks at me, no gratitude in his eyes, only doubt. “Magic exploded within you when you fought Lord Loss.”

“I know. I reached in and stole power from him.”

Drust shakes his head. “No. That’s not the whole truth. He gave it to you.” I frown, not understanding. “Lord Loss let you take from him,” Drust explains. “More than that—he extended his magic towards you. He reached within you and struck at the… the flint of your spirit, for want of a better term. He created the magical sparks and fanned them into life. You’re powerful because he wants you to be—because he lit the flames of magic inside you.”

My face whitens. “You mean the magic… my spells… that’s all because of him?”

“Aye.”

“But why?” I cry. “Why would a demon give power to a human?”

“I don’t know,” Drust says. “But I do know this. I thought you were my apprentice, but you’re not—you’re Lord Loss’s.”

And the suspicion in his eyes cuts to my heart as if he’d stabbed me in the chest with a knife.

We make slow progress in the afternoon, hampered by bad weather, having to climb lots of hills and Drust’s injuries. I hurt him with the blast of magic. He got out of my head just in time, but even so he took a hammering. He casts healing spells when he’s able, but movement is still painful.

There have been no more lessons. Drust has kept clear of me, walking close to Goll and Fiachna, bringing up the rear of the group. I don’t blame him. I’m suspicious of myself too. There’s no telling what Lord Loss got up to inside my skull and heart. Maybe he planted spells of destruction and I’m doomed to betray my friends and kill them all.

They should be told of the threat I pose but Drust has said nothing and I lack the courage to tell them. I don’t think they’d kill me but trust would be impossible. They’d cut me off. I’d be their friend no longer—merely a possible enemy.

So I walk in silence and keep my fears to myself, wondering if and when the animal within me will burst forth—either the magical animal of Lord Loss’s making or the beast of my MacGrigor heritage.

It’s late afternoon when we sight the sea. Dark blue, with white, choppy waves smashing against the rocks of the shore, roaring like a monster. It stretches as far as the eye can see. I hoped I might glimpse the shores of Tir na n’Og from here, the legendary land which lies somewhere between this place and the Otherworld. But if it’s out there, as the legends claim, it lies beyond the sight of normal folk—and magical folk too.

We stop atop a hill and marvel at the vision of the sea. Even Drust wipes a hand across his brow, then stares at the horizon with wide, childlike eyes, as though he can hardly believe it’s there.

“A thing of wild beauty,” Goll murmurs, smiling as the wind whips at his beard and hair. He strokes the flesh of his blind eye. “I saw it as a young man. I had perfect sight then. But it’s just as wondrous seen with a single eye.”

“Where does it end?” Lorcan asks, looking left and right, then straight ahead.

“Nobody knows,” Drust says, his first words of the afternoon. “Some say it goes on forever. Others that it comes to the edge of the world and drops away into nothingness. A few even claim that by some form of magic it leads to the other side of the world, that if you were to sail all the way across, you’d wash up at the lands to the east. But nobody really knows.”

“And Tir na n’Og?” Fiachna asks. “Is it out there?”

Drust shrugs. “Perhaps. There are…” He pauses, sniffs the air, looks west. “We will soon find some who believe they know where Tir na n’Og lies. You can ask them. They might be able to provide clearer answers than me.”