Brooks, Terry - High Druid's Blade - The Defenders of Shannara (9780345540713)

She disappeared in back. He stood looking around. It was odd that she had been gone for days and no one appeared to have looted the place. In almost every scenario he could imagine, that would have happened. He wondered again about who she really was.

When she rejoined him, she was dressed in different clothing—shirt, pants, boots, and gloves, all in black. She was checking the flash rip’s diapson crystal chamber as she came up to him. “All charged up,” she announced, snapping the cover closed. “If we run into the sorcerer or any other sort of trouble, I don’t want to find myself one load short.”

“You still don’t have to come,” he told her.

She smiled, tossing back her silver-streaked hair from her face. “Yes, I do. I want to.”

They left the building and went back out into the street, turning in the opposite direction from the one in which they had come. Leofur was doing the leading again, and Paxon—because he was lost anyway—had to be content with letting her. Some of what he was viewing appeared familiar, but it was difficult to be certain.

Dozens of people were in the streets by now, the sun fully up and their day begun. Carts and wagons rolled through, horses trotted by, and the silence had given way to the sounds of people and their activities.

“Where now?” he asked her finally, trying to be heard over the din.

She grabbed his arm and pulled him close to her, lifting her head to his ear. “Mischa’s quarters. All right?”

He nodded, and she released him. “Good choice,” she might have said, but he wasn’t sure.

Before long they were standing at the head of an alleyway running between two buildings. Paxon believed they were close to where he had done battle with the black creature a few days earlier.

Leofur gestured to the building on the right. “Mischa’s rooms are on the second floor,” she whispered. “We have to be really careful from here on. I’ll lead until we get inside, then you take over.”

He already had his black sword free of its sheath and grasped firmly in his right hand. “Go ahead.”

They entered through a wooden gate overgrown with vines and greenery that made it barely visible beneath a shadowy overhang. The alley was empty, and the windows of Mischa’s building were dark. There was no sign of life. The sounds of the city that had surrounded them earlier had become faint and distant. When they reached the door leading off the alley, Leofur paused to test the locks. But they were not secure, so she opened the door without trouble and led them inside.

She paused there a moment so they could listen to the silence. Then she led Paxon down a hallway to a set of stairs and up to the second floor. Again, she paused. Satisfied, she took him to rooms about halfway down to the other end of the hall, opened the door cautiously, and led him inside.

The rooms appeared empty. Paxon, sword held guardedly in front of him, moved from room to room to make sure. When he reached the bedroom in which Chrysallin had been tortured and saw the bed on which she had been tied down and the detritus from the broken threads of magic lying in lines of ash and cinders across the floor, he had to back out again right away.

“I’ll search in here,” Leofur offered. “You take the rest of the rooms.”

So they hunted through the witch’s chambers for the better part of two hours, carefully searching for hidden panels and stashes, for books and papers on which conjuring and magic might be written. They tested floorboards for looseness, searched walls for hollow places, and turned the furniture upside down. In the end, Paxon even went into the adjoining rooms, which were all vacant and mostly empty of furniture, and searched them, as well.

They found nothing.

“This can’t be right,” Paxon said as they stared at each other in frustration. “There has to be something. She would keep her important supplies and writings for her magic close.”

“Grehling said he rescued Chrys when Mischa went out to retrieve some potions and ran into her just outside while she was coming back with them. So her store of supplies should be here.” He looked around. “But she’s hidden it well. We’ve searched everywhere.”

“She would, wouldn’t she? She was a witch, and she would have been careful to protect herself.” She paused. “If it were me, I would use magic to conceal everything.”

He nodded slowly. “Of course. It’s here, but we just can’t see it.”

Leofur nodded. “A Druid could show us. We should have brought one along.”

Paxon thought instantly of Starks, who would have come without hesitating. He compressed his lips and shrugged. “There’s someone else who likely knows.”

She nodded slowly. “I knew we’d get to that. You won’t let go of it, will you?”

“Not when it’s the only way.”

“We don’t even know where he is.”

“Dark House.”

She nodded reluctantly. “Probably. But why would Arcannen help you?”

“He wouldn’t. Not willingly.”

Her face tightened and despair reflected in her eyes. “Don’t do this, Paxon. Wait for some help.”

“If I wait for help, he’ll get away. He’ll be gone, and I might not find him again. I might not have any chance of finding whatever Mischa’s got hidden in here.”

“You’re thinking of Starks. This is about avenging his death.”

He stepped close. “I promise you it isn’t. I’m doing this for Chrys. That’s the truth. Believe me, please.”

She shook her head. “I suppose I do believe you. Although I don’t know why.” She sighed heavily, and then took hold of his arms and turned him toward the doorway. “I want to believe you, so I will. Don’t disappoint me. Let’s go find him.”

At Paranor, Aphenglow Elessedil had come awake. She ached from head to foot from Chrysallin’s attack, but her thinking was clear and sharp. She lay in her bed for long minutes, gathering her thoughts. In a chair nearby, one of the Druid Healers dozed, head lowered, hands clasped in his lap. The curtains were drawn and the room was dark, so she could not tell what time it was, although she could see slivers of light through tiny gaps in the fabric.

She was thinking of what had happened to her when she had come face-to-face with Chrysallin, but mostly she was thinking about what she now knew of the theft of the artifacts from the Druid vault. She was carrying this burden alone for the moment, unwilling to speak with anyone else about it. She had known who the thief was for a short while now, but had let the matter be because she wasn’t certain how to handle it. Unusual for her—but then the truth about who had committed the thefts was unusual, as well.

Worse, it exposed a failing in her with which she had not managed to come to terms. It made her realize how very long she had been Ard Rhys. She found herself thinking of Arling, now gone for more than a century and a half—the sister she loved so much and had tried so hard to protect. In the end, she had failed her sister because Arling had sacrificed herself to save the Four Lands, and Aphen had let her. With Arling gone, her mother and her beloved uncle Ellich long since dead, and even steady, dependable Seersha passed away, she had been left alone. She had other family, but they were not close. She had separated herself from Arborlon and made her home at Paranor. The Druids were her family now, and she had given her entire life to caring for them.

Perhaps that was why it hurt so much to know that one of them had betrayed her.

She sat up finally, unwilling to remain abed any longer, and when she did so the Druid dozing in the chair woke up. “Mistress!” he exclaimed in horror, and he leapt up to prevent her from rising.

“No, no,” she insisted, warding him off with arms extended. “I’m well enough to get up and walk around. Please let me do so.”