The Weapons Master's Choice Page 4

  Though that had not happened here, because a creature who cared nothing for what they had become and only for the purposes they might serve had preyed upon them. Incapacitated by their illness, they could not fight back. They could only hide and hope they would not be found.

  He looked around the room, his eyes shifting from face to face. Only a few managed to meet his gaze. Most turned away at once, hiding themselves as best they could, anxious that no one should ever look on them again. He understood this. His own revulsion was uncomfortably revealing. He could not help himself, even knowing it was wrong.

  “I promised I would pay you for your services,” she said, turning away. “Come with me.”

  She led him from the room into a maze of hallways beyond, producing the crystal once more to light their way. They proceeded through the darkness, following various corridors past closed doors and shuttered windows. They climbed a set of stairs until they were several stories higher and then walked from there until they arrived at a tiny bedroom. “This one is mine,” she told him as they entered.

  Still holding the crystal to provide them with light, she crossed to an ancient cupboard and brought out a leather pouch. Then she came back again and handed it to him. When he opened it, he saw it was filled with gold coins.

  “Is this payment enough?” she asked him.

  “I don’t want any money.” He hesitated, searching for the words. “What I want is for you—”

  “No!” she interrupted quickly. “Don’t ask it of me. I can’t do what you want.” She took a deep breath. “It isn’t only that I care for these people. I am one of them.”

  He felt all the air drain from him, her words leaving him emptied out. Had he heard her right? One of them? A leper? No, he told himself quickly, he must be mistaken. There was nothing wrong with her. He could see there was nothing wrong just by looking at her.

  But then he remembered how she had flinched when he reached for her that first night, how she had told him not to touch her. He remembered how she had been so careful to keep herself covered up while they traveled, always making sure to keep some distance between them.

  He felt his heart sink.

  “I came to Tajarin to help my parents and my brother, all of whom had the disease. While I lived among them, I contracted it, too. But I don’t regret it. I did what I felt was right. When Kronswiff and his Het appeared, I went in search of you—a man whose reputation reached even so remote a place as Tajarin—because I was mostly sound still, mostly able, and the only one who had any use of magic. I was the one on whom the marks of sickness were least visible and who could use magic to help heal myself should I get worse. But it doesn’t change the truth of my condition.”

  She pulled open her cloak and lifted her blouse. Large sections of her torso were blotchy and raw where the disease had settled in. Her eyes lifted to meet his. “I am too sick already to leave.”

  She dropped her blouse and closed her cloak. “I hid my condition from you so that you would come. I was afraid you wouldn’t, if you knew. I kept my use of magic secret, as well. When the crossbow bolt was fired at me, I used magic to deflect the blow. I used it again to help you against Kronswiff. I had not intended to do so, but I felt I had to. No one else could have killed him, if you had failed.”

  Her voice gathered strength. “Kronswiff had learned of a leprous people living on the Tiderace, a population possessed of gold and silver kept concealed within the walls of their remote city. He came to rob us and to feed on us. It did not bother him that we were lepers. He was immune to our disease and hungry for our bodies and wealth. He took both. There was no one to stop him; no one cares about lepers. What did it matter what became of us? We were already the walking dead. We were at his mercy, and he had none to spare us.”

  “You could still come with me,” he said. “Back down to the Southland. Your people are safe now. The Het won’t return if there is no one to pay for their services. There are Healers at Storlock who could help you. There are medicines …”

  He spoke the words in a rush, as much to convince himself as to persuade her. He couldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t. Not when there might be a chance, however slim, that she could be saved.

  But she shook her head. “No, Weapons Master. I have to stay here. This is where I belong. Take the gold and go and know you did something important by helping us. We had no one, and we were being destroyed. Even lepers have a right to the life that is given them, no matter their condition, no matter their fate. Others would have passed us by. You were not one of those, and we will never forget you.”

  She paused. “I will never forget you.”

  Her eyes held him, and what he felt for her was so strong—even knowing how sick she was—that he could barely stand it. He had never felt like this about anyone before, and he was stricken at the thought of simply walking away.

  She pointed to the doorway. “Go left down the hall, then take the stairs. From there, go straight through to the door at the end. It will lead you outside. You can find your way from there.”

  He nodded, knowing there was no other choice. He couldn’t stay here. He didn’t belong here. His life was outside these walls, but hers was not.

  “Lyriana.”

  He spoke her name once and stepped close, bending his face to hers. This time she didn’t move away, didn’t flinch, didn’t tell him not to touch her. Instead she lifted her mouth to accept his kiss and kissed him back.

  He left her there and went down the hallway, out through the door into the streets of the city and over its walls to the world beyond. It had been a long time since he had cried, and he didn’t cry now.

  He understood better now why he had been drawn to her, what it was that had attracted him so. He had sensed the connection between them, but had not understood it. Now he did. He was as damaged as she was, and just as lost. He was fated to die of a cause not of his making as surely as she was; it was only a question of when. But while she had achieved peace of mind, his own remained a slippery and elusive thing. Lyriana had shown him how he must be if he were ever to find his way, and it had generated in him something that approached love.

  Perhaps, in its own fashion, that’s what it actually was.

  The courage she evidenced in accepting what was to happen to her was the true measure of her strength. He would learn from that. He would find grace as she had. But he could not help wishing he had been able to do so with her beside him. He had wanted his kiss to express how much he wished it.

  So much so that even the risk of contracting leprosy by placing his mouth on hers had not been enough to dissuade him from doing it.

  For the first two days of travel back to Tombara, he was miserable. He could not stop thinking about her. He could not stop his aching. Then, on the third day, the pain began to ease as his thoughts drifted to other things. He was the Weapons Master first and always, and the time he had envisioned for himself and Lyriana—even in the best of circumstances—would never have lasted. It would have required him to change, and it was too late for that. His path in life was already determined, and he knew he was fated to follow it to its end.

  In Tombara he found the commission waiting that would take him to Varfleet. And by then, Lyriana and Tajarin were already fading into the dark well of his past.

  About the Author

  TERRY BROOKS is the New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty books, including the Dark Legacy of Shannara adventure Wards of Faerie; the Legends of Shannara novels Bearers of the Black Staff and The Measure of the Magic; the Genesis of Shannara trilogy: Armageddon’s Children, The Elves of Cintra, and The Gypsy Morph; The Sword of Shannara; the Voyage of the Jerle Shannara trilogy: Ilse Witch, Antrax, and Morgawr; the High Druid of Shannara trilogy: Jarka Ruus, Tanequil, and Straken; the nonfiction book Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life; and the novel based upon the screenplay and story by George Lucas, Star Wars®: Episode I The Phantom Menace™. His novels Running with the Demon and A Knight of the
Word were selected by the Rocky Mountain News as two of the best science fiction/fantasy novels of the twentieth century. The author was a practicing attorney for many years but now writes full-time. He lives with his wife, Judine, in the Pacific Northwest.

  Read on for an excerpt from Terry Brooks’s

  Bloodfire Quest

  IN THE HOSTILE AND BLASTED COUNTRY OF THE FORBIDDING, the survivors of the search party for the missing Elfstones stared at the Ard Rhys in disbelief.

  “What did you say?” Carrick was the first to break the silence, his stance aggressive. He glared at the Ard Rhys. “Tell me I misheard you.”

  Khyber faced him squarely. She was not in the least intimidated, Redden thought as he stood off to one side, watching the confrontation unfold.

  “We are inside the Forbidding,” she answered. “Just as Grianne Ohmsford was a hundred years ago. Trapped.”

  Carrick shook his head. “That isn’t possible.”

  “I’m afraid it is. The shimmer of light we passed through was a breach in the wall that had been deliberately altered to suggest it was something other than what it really is. Even my magic failed to detect it. As did your own, Carrick.”

  “But you can’t be sure of this! How do you know?”

  “The look of the land. The creatures that attacked us on our way in—things not of our world but very much of this one. Giant insects, Goblins. The dragon that attacked us and then took away Oriantha and Crace Coram—when there aren’t any Drachas left in the Four Lands. The way the opening was there one minute and gone the next. There’s no mistaking what we saw. Anyone who knows the history of the Four Lands and its Races would know the truth of it. We are inside the Forbidding.”

  There was a stunned silence.

  Then Pleysia, still on her knees, began to laugh hysterically. “How much worse can this get? We’ve lost half our number. A dragon has carried away my daughter and the Dwarf. We found our way in and can’t find our way out.” Her laughter died away into sobs. “All of us are caught out on the wrong side of a door we can’t even find, let alone open! Caught among creatures that will tear us to bits once they discover we’re here. It’s madness!”

  Carrick whipped around to say something, and then stopped short. “Your daughter? That odd girl is your daughter? Why didn’t you tell us?”

  Pleysia hauled herself to her feet, her eyes dark as they fixed on him. “Would it have made any difference to you? What do you care about me and mine, anyway?”

  The Trolls were pressing forward as well, talking among themselves, lapsing into their own guttural language as they gestured at the bodies of Garroneck and the other dead. Redden took a step back in spite of himself, even though he wasn’t the one being threatened. If anything, he was being ignored. It was Khyber Elessedil who was bearing the brunt of everyone’s rage and fear.

  “Stay calm,” she ordered, raising her voice only a little.

  “Stay calm?” Carrick looked wild and dangerous. “We have to get out of here, Mistress. Right now!”

  “I’m not leaving my daughter!” Pleysia screamed at him. “We don’t go anywhere until we find her!”

  Redden looked around uneasily. They were standing out in the open, and the sound of their voices would carry a long way. If there was anything else out there hunting, anything as dangerous as that dragon, it would find them with no trouble.

  “Come close,” the Ard Rhys ordered them, indicating both Druids and Trolls. She did not look at Redden, but he stepped toward her anyway. “Now listen to me,” she said, looking from face to face. “We can’t go back the way we came. The way we came is gone. Or if not gone, lost to us. But before we give up completely on finding it, we should use our magic to see if it can be revealed. Carrick? Pleysia? We should at least try.”

  So they did, each one of them separately, conjuring Druid magic and sending it abroad, sweeping the countryside for a hint of where the door might be concealed. But even though they kept at it for long minutes, it showed them nothing.

  I could try using the wishsong, Redden thought. But then something else occurred to him.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this,” he said suddenly. All heads turned. “Doesn’t the use of magic attract other magic? Especially here, where there is so much of it?”

  “He is right,” Khyber Elessedil said.

  “But we can’t stand here and do nothing!” Carrick insisted. “What does it matter if we use our magic or not? The things that hunt us in this monstrous land will find us sooner or later anyway. Our only chance to escape them is to discover a way out and take it!”

  The Ard Rhys shook her head. “Maybe nothing is hunting us. Except for the dragon, the creatures that inhabit the Forbidding might not even know we are here. Not yet, anyway. Remember how we got here. The blue Elfstones showed Aphenglow that this was the way to the missing Stones. Her vision was clear enough to get us this far, and everything we have done has followed that vision exactly. Even the shimmer of light was a part of what she was shown. We were not lured here. We came of our own free will at the direction of the seeking-Stones. Whoever created this trap didn’t know that we would be the ones to fall into it.”

  “What difference does that make?” Carrick demanded. “We don’t have the blue Elfstones now. We can’t use them to find a way out.”

  “No one is suggesting we can. But we shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking we’re trapped by something that hunts us. We may yet find a way out. We mustn’t panic. We must stay calm and remain together. If we are judicious about it, we can still use our magic to find another doorway. If the Forbidding has eroded in one place, it has probably eroded in another.”

  Redden wondered about that, but since he knew nothing specific about the way in which the Forbidding worked, he kept still about his doubts.

  “Redden,” the Ard Rhys called to him, and he glanced over quickly. “Just to be certain that we overlook no possibility, will you try using the wishsong?”

  He nodded and summoned the magic to seek out the shimmer of light through which they had passed, picturing it in his mind. Quickly enough the blue light flashed to a place perhaps a hundred feet away from where they stood, flaring out in a broad swath. But open countryside was all they saw. Nothing else was revealed.

  Nevertheless, acting on the wishsong’s response, the three Druids went at once to the place where the magic had spun out, searching for anything that would suggest a doorway back through the Forbidding. But their efforts were in vain. No opening appeared, no sign of a way through the invisible wall that imprisoned them.

  “I’ve had enough of this!” Pleysia snapped. “I’m going after my daughter. Those who want to come with me can. Otherwise, I’ll go alone.”

  She stalked away from them, suddenly looking much stronger and more determined. Redden and the others watched her for long minutes before Carrick muttered, “We shouldn’t let her go off without us. Besides, there’s nothing for us here.”

  Khyber Elessedil nodded. “Let’s stay with her, then. We can keep searching for a way out as we go.”

  Which meant she had no better idea to offer and perhaps recognized that their situation was much more hopeless than she wanted to admit aloud.

  They set off—the three Druids, the four Trolls, and Redden—heading in the direction that the dragon had flown. It felt futile to Redden, who would have preferred staying where they were. Maybe Seersha, who had been left behind with Railing and the others, would come looking for them and be able to guide them back again. Maybe the opening would reappear after a while.

  But the decision wasn’t his to make, and he could feel the despondency and loss of hope that appeared to infect the others working its way through him, as well. He wished he had never agreed to come with the Ard Rhys but instead had remained behind with Railing. He wondered how Railing was. At least his brother wasn’t inside the Forbidding like he was, but matters might not be going so well on the other side of the wall, either. After all, those Goblins would still be hunt
ing them, and possibly other things by now. They were still deep in the interior of the Fangs, and if Seersha didn’t get word to Mirai to come rescue them, it would be a long and dangerous trek back out again.

  And Railing couldn’t walk with his broken leg. He would have to be carried. Helpless.

  Redden walked in silence for a long time, watching Pleysia lead them—almost as if she knew where she was going. He tried to imagine Oriantha as the Elf Druid’s daughter and failed. They seemed nothing alike. Yet there was a clear connection between them, one that went beyond friendship. He shifted his gaze to Carrick and watched the tall Druid for a time, his aspect somber and detached. Then he glanced over at the Trolls, muttering among themselves as they lumbered along.

  Finally he moved up alongside the Ard Rhys.

  “Do you think one of the others might come looking for us?” he asked her quietly. “Maybe Seersha or Skint?”

  “Maybe. If they do, the tag I left on the opening will alert me. If it’s Seersha, she will recognize it and know it for a warning to stay back until I return for her.” She glanced over. “Is that what you were wondering? If I made a mistake in deciding to leave and come along with Pleysia?”

  He flushed. “It had crossed my mind.”

  She smiled, the wrinkles in her face smoothing in a way that made her seem decidedly younger. “I thought so. I considered staying where we were. But we would have had to come looking for Oriantha and Crace Coram eventually. We couldn’t leave either of them behind.” She paused. “You have your wits about you, Redden Ohmsford. You’ll be fine.”

  He nodded, not so sure about that. “So you think the Elfstones are really in here somewhere? Like Aphenglow was shown by the vision?”