Terry Brooks - Paladins of Shannara - The Weapons Master's Choice

“But you will set my people free?”

He nodded, saying nothing. He took some bread from his backpack, tore off a hunk, and handed it to her. Then he took some for himself.

“There are a great many for you to overcome,” she said.

He shrugged. “There always are.”

“I wish I could help you.”

“Maybe you can. Do you know where Kronswiff can be found once we’re inside the walls?” He waited for her nod. “Then that will be help enough.”

They were silent for a long time after that, finishing their spare meal and washing it down with water from their skins. The darkness began to deepen as night settled in, and the wind died into a strange hushed silence.

“Why do your people stay in Tajarin?” he asked. “What keeps them here?”

She shrugged. “It is their home. For most, it is all they know. They seek quiet and seclusion; they desire privacy. They find it here.”

“But doesn’t it bother them to be so isolated? Surely no travelers come this way, or any traders. How do you manage to live? Have you livestock of any sort? Or crops? How do you find food?”

“We have gardens that in better weather yield crops. We have some livestock, a sufficient number that we don’t starve. Sometimes we leave long enough to bring back supplies from other places. But no one comes to Tajarin. Not even ships, as in the old days. There are not enough of us to bother with. And the waters of the Tiderace are treacherous. The risk is not worth it. Only Kronswiff and his Het have come here in my lifetime. No one else.”

He hesitated. “Have you thought about leaving? About going somewhere else? Before now, I mean? Before you came looking for me?”

She looked down at her feet. “Not before now.”

The way she said it suggested that maybe she was considering the possibility. Perhaps because of him. But he said nothing of this, leaving the matter where it was. Another time, he would ask her, when this business with her people was over and done.

He kept them waiting another hour, remaining in the concealment of the rocks, biding their time. Her reticence was a clear indicator of her wishes, and they talked little. He let her be until the light was gone from the skies and the blackness complete, and then he brought her to her feet and took her back out onto the road.

The way forward was dark with shadows and gloom. His eyesight was good in the darkness—perhaps because he had spent so much time there—and after leaving the road he found their path to the walls of the city without difficulty. Standing motionless, he listened for long moments, but heard nothing. Producing a slender rope, he then fastened it to a collapsible grappling hook and heaved it over the wall. It caught on the first try, and after testing it with his weight he went up the wall like a spider. Once safely on top and having determined he was alone, he motioned for her to fasten the rope about her slender waist. Then he hauled her up, hand-over-hand, to join him.

Stashing the rope and grappling hook in his pack, he searched the maze of empty squares and city streets below. “Which way do we go?” he whispered.

She led him down a stone stairway to their left and from there into the heart of the city. Tajarin was built on a series of terraced levels that descended from high above the Tiderace—from where they had first stood upon the city walls—to the shores of a waterfront. Ships rocked at their berths against sagging wooden docks, and not one of them looked fit enough to set sail. Everywhere he cast about, he found dilapidation and ruin. The city appeared not to have been cared for in years. Decay and rot had weakened crossbeams and supports, and even the walls were beginning to crumble where wind and rain had scoured and eroded their surfaces.

The minutes crawled past as they made their way down one empty street after another, past gloom-filled alleyways and alcoves, past buildings dark and silent. No other person appeared, and not a single sound could be heard save the rush of the wind through the towers and parapets and the wash of the waves against the piers and shoreline.

Garet Jax glanced about, his gaze shifting. Is there anybody here at all? Where are Lyriana’s people?

Only once did he detect another presence, and he backed them into a darkened entry and waited in silence as a pair of the Het passed by on their way to the back wall. A changing of the guard, he assumed, so at least he knew the city was not entirely abandoned and his purpose in coming was not in vain.

Finally, after descending through four of the terraced levels, they arrived at a complex of boxy, multistory buildings connected by adjoining walls so that they resembled a jumble of monstrous blocks. He had seen such buildings before in other cities, each designed to achieve the same purpose—to create something awe inspiring, something magnificent due solely to size and weight. But there was never any beauty or grace in such fat, squat structures no matter how large, and so it was here.

Ignoring his hesitation, Lyriana moved past him along the facing wall to where a single door was recessed into the stone. She produced a key from her pocket, and in moments they were inside, standing in the darkness.

He waited as he heard her rummaging about, and then abruptly a small light flared and he saw that its source was a crystal she was holding. “This way,” she whispered.

They crept down countless corridors deep into the interior of the complex, edging their way forward with the help of the crystal’s bright light. They passed dozens of doors and a handful of chambers open to the passageways they followed, but everything remained silent and empty. Once, they descended one set of stairs, and then shortly afterward climbed back up another. There were no lights anywhere. In a few of the corridors they passed down, windows closed over by heavy drapes and wooden shutters let in slivers of ambient light through cracks in the fabric and boards.

When they heard the first murmurs coming from somewhere still far ahead, Lyriana stopped him where he was and backed him against the wall.

“You must promise me,” she said, “that if your efforts to save my people fail you will not let me be taken alive.”

He could barely see her face in the deep gloom—only the curve of one cheek, a burnished lock of auburn hair, a glint of bright eyes—so he could not read her intent in making this request.

“I won’t fail,” he said.

“I can’t let Kronswiff do to me what he’s done to the others,” she continued, almost as if she hadn’t heard him.

He was taken aback by the intensity in her voice. “No one will do anything to you. Don’t even show yourself. Stay out of sight.”

“You don’t know. You haven’t seen what happens yet. If you are killed, I don’t want to be left in his hands. If I am to die, I wish it to be on my own terms. That will not happen if Kronswiff takes me alive. Promise me!”

He was stunned by the change in her behavior, as if simply the act of returning to Tajarin was enough to peel away the confidence she had displayed in coming to find him in the first place. There was real fear in her voice, and he was suddenly convinced there was something important she wasn’t telling him.

He reached for her, intending to offer reassurance, but she shrank away instantly, just as she had at the start of their journey. “No, don’t,” she whispered so softly he could barely hear her. “Just promise me.”

His hands dropped away. He felt a vague disappointment, but quickly brushed it aside with a small shrug. “All right. If it makes you feel better, I promise.”

She started them down the corridor once more, still leading the way. As they progressed, the murmurs ahead grew louder and more distinct, containing recognizable words. Lyriana slowed, and he detected the beginnings of hesitation and uncertainty. He almost took her arm, but remembered her earlier reticence and held back. Better to let her do this alone.