Shannara - Wishsong of Shannara Part 21

"I'm fine!" Slanter muttered almost inaudibly, brushing with his hand at the darkness before him.

Then abruptly the Mwellret came forward to the edge of the light, a tall, cloaked form that seemed to materialize from out of the shadows. Essentially man-shaped, it walked upright on two powerful hind legs, crooked and muscled. Forearms reached out tentatively, and where there should have been skin and hair there was only a covering of toughened gray scales ending in crooked claws. Within its cowl, the Mwellret's face turned toward them, reptilian snout lifting into the light, scaled and split wide to reveal rows of sharpened teeth and a serpent's tongue.

Nostrils flared at the snout's blunt end; further up, almost lost within the cowl's darkness, slitted green eyes glimmered.

"Sstythyss knowss what bringss you, little peopless," the monster hissed slowly. "Knowss well."

There was silence. "Graymark," Foraker said finally.

"Wraithss," the other whispered. "Sstythyss knowss. Walkerss that desstroy. Come from out of the pitss, from the black hole of the Maelmord. From death! Climbss to Heaven'ss Well to Poisson the waterss of the Ssilver River. Poisson the land. Desstroy it! Comess into Graymark, doess the evil. Comess to drive uss from our homess. Ensslave uss."

"You saw it happen?" Foraker asked.

"Ssaw it all! Wraithss come from darknesss, drive uss forth and sseize what iss ourss. No match for ssuch power. Flee! Ssome of uss desstroyed!"

Slanter spit suddenly into the darkness, muttering as he shifted back a step and kicked at the stone flooring.

"Sstay!" the Mwellret hissed suddenly, an unmistakable tone of command in its voice.

Slanter's head snapped up. "Gnomess have no need to fear uss. Friendss have we been-not like the Wraithss. Wraithss desstroy all that iss life becausse they are not life. Thingss of death! The dark magic ruless. All the landss will fall to them."

"But you have a way to destroy them!" Foraker pressed.

"Hss! Graymark belongss to uss! Wraithss tresspa.s.ss in our home! Think themsselvess ssafe with uss gone-but wrong. Wayss to get at them there! Wayss they do not know!"

"Pa.s.sages!" Jair exclaimed suddenly, so intent on what the other was telling them that for an instant he forgot his vow.

At once the Mwellret's head snapped up, as if an animal testing the air. Jair went cold, a sense of something tremendously evil settling over him as he stood there in the sudden silence.

The Mwellret's serpent tongue snaked out. "Magicss, little friend? Magicss do you have?"

No one spoke. Jair was sweating violently. Foraker glanced about at him sharply, momentarily uncertain as to what had happened.

"In your voisse, little friend?" the Mwellret whispered. "Ssense it in your voisse, I do.

Ssense it in you. Magicss like my own. Do it for me, yess? Sspeak!"

Something seemed to wrap itself about Jair, some invisible coil that squeezed the breath from him. Before he could help himself he began to sing. Quick and sharp, the wishsong slipped from between his clenched teeth and waves of color and shape rode the air between them, dancing through the darkness and lamplight like living things.

An instant later Jair was free again, the coils that had bound him gone. The wishsong diedinto silence. The Valeman gasped in shock and dropped weakly to his knees. Slanter was at his side at once, pulling him back toward the door, yelling wildly at the Mwellret, grappling with his free hand for Edain Elessedil's long knife. Hurriedly, Foraker parted them, his own sword drawn free as he turned to face Stythys. The Mwellret had suddenly shrunk in size, withdrawing into the shadows of the cowled robes, stepping back again into darkness.

"What did you do to him?" Foraker snapped. The Mwellret shrank back further, slitted eyes gleaming in the black. Foraker wheeled abruptly. "That's enough. We're leaving."

"Sstay!" the Mwellret wailed suddenly. "Sspeak with Sstythyss! Can tell you of the Wraithss!"

"Not interested anymore," Foraker replied, banging his sword handle against the storage room door.

""Hss! Musst talk with Sstythyss if you wissh the Wraithss desstroyed! Only I know how!

Ssecretss mine!" the creature's voice was hard and impossibly cold now, all pretense of friendliness gone. "Little friendss will come back-musst come back! Be ssorry if you leave!"

"We're sorry we came!" Edain Elessedil threw back. "We don't need your help!"

Jair was walking through the open doorway now, supported on one side by the Elven Prince and on the other by Slanter, who was muttering every step of the way. Shaking his head to clear it, the Valeman glanced back at the Mwellret, a cloaked and faceless shape squeezed deep within the shadows as Foraker took his small light from the room.

"Needss my help!" the creature said softly, scaled arm lifting. "Comess again, little friendss! Comess back!"

Then the Dwarf sentries were closing and barring the storage room door once more, latch bolts and crossbars snapping tightly into place. Jair took a deep breath and straightened himself, shrugging free of the supporting arms. Foraker stopped him, peering closely into his eyes, grunted, and turned back down the pa.s.sageway that had brought them.

"Guess you're all right," he announced. "Let's get back up into the air."

"What happened, Jair!" Edain Elessedil wanted to know. "How did he make you do that?"

Jair shook his head. "I'm not sure." Still shaken, he began walking after Foraker, the Elven Prince and the Gnome on either side. "I'm just not sure."

"Black devils!" Slanter muttered heatedly, invoking his favorite epithet. "They can twist you."

The Valeman nodded briefly and walked on. He wished he knew how that misting had been done.

21.

Night swept down about Capaal, black, misted and still. Moon and stars lay screened away from the mountain heights, and only the oil lamps of the Dwarves and watchfires of the Gnomes gave light to the shadowed dark. Frost began to form on stone and scrub, moisture freezing white as the temperature fell lower. An unpleasant stillness lay over everything.

Atop the battlements of the Dwarf fortress, Jair and Elb Foraker looked down upon the locks and dams that spanned the gap between the mountains where the Silver River flowed.

"More than five hundred years old now," the Dwarf was explaining, his voice low and rough against the night's silence. "Built in the time of Raybur, when our people still had kings.

Built when the Second War of the Races was ended."

Jair stared wordlessly over the parapets into the darkness below, tracing the ma.s.sive outline of the complex against the faint light of torches and lamps that lit its stone. There were three dams, broad bands curving back against the flow of the Silver River as it dropped downward to the gorge below. A series of locks regulated that flow, the machinery, seated within and concealed by the dams and the fortress that protected both. The fortress sat astride the high dam, sprawled end to end and guarding all pa.s.sageways leading in. Behind the high dam, the Cillidellan stretched away into blackness, ringed by the red watchfires of the siege army, yet oddly opaque in the moonless shadows of this night. Between the high dam and its lower levels, the Silver River pooled in two small reservoirs on its pa.s.sage downward from the heights. Sheer cliffs flanked both ends of the lower levels, and the only way down was across catwalks or through underground pa.s.sageways that tunneled into the rock.

"Gnomes would love to have this," Foraker grunted, his arm sweeping over the complex.

"Controls nearly the whole of the water supply for the lands west to the Rainbow Lake. In the rainy seasons, without this, there would be flooding, as there used to be before the locks and dams were built to guard against it." He shook his head. "In a bad spring, even Culhaven would be swept away."

Jair looked about slowly, impressed with the size of the complex, awed by the effort that must have been expended in its construction. Foraker had already taken him on a tour through the inner workings of the locks and dams, explaining the machinery and the duties of those who tended it. Jair was grateful for the tour.

Slanter was absorbed in reworking Dwarf maps of the lands north to the Ravenshorn-maps, the Gnome had been quick to point out when they were shown him, which were entirely inaccurate. Anxious to avoid the necessity of a return to the storage room where the Mwellret was caged and determined to establish his own expertise, Slanter had agreed to make notations on the maps so that the little company would be properly advised as to the geography of the lands they must pa.s.s through during the journey that lay ahead. Edain Elessedil had excused himself and gone off on his own. When Foraker, therefore, had offered to show Jair something of the locks and dams, the Valeman had been quick to accept. Part of the reason for the tour, Jair suspected, was to take his mind off Garet Jax, who had still not returned. But that was all right, too. He preferred not to think about the missing Weapons Master.

"Cliffs don't allow the Gnomes a way down to the lower dams," Foraker was saying, eyes turned back toward the distant watchfires. "The fortress guards all pa.s.sage that way. Our ancestors knew that well enough when they built Capaal. As long as the fortress stands, the locks and dams are safe. As long as the locks and dams are safe, the Silver River is safe.""Except that it's being poisoned," Jair pointed out.

The Dwarf nodded. "It is. But it would be worse if the whole of the Cillidellan were let loose into the gorge. The poisoning would be quicker then-all the way west."

"Don't the other lands know this?" Jair asked quietly.

"They know."

"You would think they would be here to help you, in that case."

Foraker chuckled mirthlessly. "You would think so. But not everyone wants to believe the truth of things, you see. Some want to hide from it."

"Have any of the races agreed to aid you?"

The Dwarf shrugged. "Some. The Westland Elves are sending an army under Ander Elessedil. It's still two weeks away, though. Callahorn promises aid; Helt and a handful of others already fight with us. Nothing from the Trolls yet-but the Northern territories are vast and the tribes scattered. Perhaps they will at least help us along the northern borders."

He trailed off. Jair waited a moment, then asked, "And the Southland?"

"The Southland?" Foraker shook his head slowly. "The Southland has the Federation and its Coalition Council. A bunch of fools. Petty internal bickerings and power struggles occupy all of their energies. And the new Southland has no use for the peoples of the other lands. The race of Man reverts to what it was in the time of the First War. If there were a Warlock Lord alive now, I fear the Federation would be a willing follower."

Jair winced inwardly. In the First War of the Races, fought hundreds of years earlier, the Warlock Lord had subverted the race of Man and convinced it to attack the other races. Man had been defeated in that war and had still not recovered from the humiliation and bitterness of their loss. Isolationist in policy and practice, the Federation had absorbed and become spokesman for the majority of the Southland and the race of Man.

"Still, Callahorn stands with you," Jair declared quickly. "The Bordermen are a different breed."

"Even the Bordermen may not be enough." Foraker grunted. "Even the whole of the Legion. You've seen the gathering of tribes without. United, they are a power greater than anything we can match. And they have the aid of those black things that command them..." He shook his head darkly.

Jair's brow furrowed. "But we have an ally of our own who can stand against the Mord Wraiths. We have Allanon."

"Yes, Allanon," Foraker murmured, then shook his head once more.

"And Brin," Jair added. "Once they've found the Ildatch..."

He trailed off, the warning of the King of the Silver River suddenly a dark whisper in his mind. Leaves in the wind, he had said. Your sister and the Druid. Both will be lost.

He shoved the whisper aside roughly. It won't happen like that, he promised. I'll reach them first. I'll find them. I'll throw the Silver Dust into Heaven's Well to cleanse its waters, throw the vision crystal after, and then...He paused uncertainly. What? He didn't know. Something. He would do something that would keep the old man's prophecy from coming to pa.s.s.

But first there was the journey north, he reminded himself glumly. And before that, Garet Jax must return...

Foraker was walking along the battlements once more, bearded face lowered into his chest, hands stuffed into the pockets of the travel cloak he wore wrapped about his stocky frame.

Jair caught up with him as he started down a set of broad stone steps to a lower ramp."Can you tell me something about Garet Jax?" the Valeman asked suddenly.

The Dwarf's head remained lowered. "What would you have me tell you?"

Jair shook his head. "I don't know. Something."

"Something?" the other grunted. "Bit vague, don't you think? What sort of something?"

Jair thought about it a moment. "Something no one else knows. Something about him."

Foraker walked to a parapet overlooking the dark expanse of the Cillidellan, resting his elbows on the stonework as he stared out into the night. Jair stood silently beside him, waiting.

"You want to understand him, don't you?" Foraker asked finally.

The Valeman nodded slowly. "A little, at least."

The Dwarf shook his head. "I'm not sure that it's possible, Ohmsford. It's like trying to understand a...a hawk. You see him, see what he is, what he does. You marvel at him, you wonder at his being. But you can't ever understand him-not really. You have to be him to understand him."

"You seem to understand him," Jair offered.

Foraker's fierce countenance swung sharply about to face him. "Is that what you think, Ohmsford? That I understand him?" He shook his head once more. "No better than I understand the hawk. Less, maybe. I know him because I've spent time with him, fought with him, and trained men with him. I know him for that. I know what he is, too. But all that doesn't amount to a pinch of dust when it comes to understanding."

He hesitated. "Garet Jax is like another form of life compared to you, me, or anyone else you'd care to name. A special and singular form of life, because there's only one." The eyebrows lifted. "He's magic in his way. He does things no other man could hope to do-or even try to do.

He survives what would kill anyone else, and he does it time after time. Like the hawk, it's instinct-it lets him fly way up there above the rest of us where no one can touch him. A thing apart. Understand him? No, I couldn't begin to understand him."

Jair was quiet for a moment. "He came to the Eastland because of you, though," he said finally. "At least, he says that is why he came. So he must feel some sort of friendship for you.

You must share a kinship."

"Perhaps." The other shrugged. "But that doesn't mean I understand him. Besides, he does what he does for reasons that are all his own and not necessarily what he says they are-I know that much. He's here not just because of me, Ohmsford. He's here for other reasons as well." He tapped Jair on the shoulder. "He's here as much because of you as because of me, I think. But I don't know the reason why. Perhaps you do."

The Valeman hesitated, thinking. "He said he would be my protector because that was what the King of the Silver River had said he must be." He trailed off.

"Well and good." Foraker nodded. "But do you understand him any better for knowing that? I do not." He paused, then looked back out across the lake. "No, his reasons are his own and the reasons are not ones he would tell to me."

Jair barely heard him. He had remembered something, and a look of surprise flitted over his face. Quickly he turned away. His mind froze. Were the reasons that Garet Jax would not tell to Foraker ones that he would tell to the Valeman? Hadn't the Weapons Master done just that in the dark, chill rain that second night out of Culhaven when the two had crouched alone beneath that ridgeline? The memory stirred slowly to life. I want you to understand...That was what Garet Jax had told him. The dream promised a test of skill greater than any I have ever faced. A chance to see if I am truly the best. For me, what else is there...?Jair breathed deeply the chill night air. Maybe he understood Garet Jax better than he thought. Maybe he understood him as well as anyone could.

"There is one thing not many know." Foraker turned back suddenly. Jair shoved aside his musings. "You say he found you in the Black Oaks. Ever wonder why he happened to be there?

After all, he was coming east out of Callahorn."

Jair nodded slowly. "I hadn't thought about that. I guess the Black Oaks are rather out of the way for one traveling from the borderlands to the Anar." He hesitated. "What was he doing there?"

Foraker smiled faintly. "I'm only guessing, you understand. He's not told me any more than you. But the lake country north, between Leah and the lowlands of Clete-that was his home.

That was where he was born, where he grew up. Once, long ago, he had family there. Some, anyway. Hasn't said anything about it for a long time, bur maybe there's still someone there. Or maybe just memories."

"A family," Jair repeated softly, then shook his head. "Has he told you who they were?"

The Dwarf pushed himself back from the parapet. "No. Mentioned it once, that was all.

But now you know something about the man no one else knows-except me, of course. Does that help you understand him any better?"

Jair smiled. "I don't suppose so."

Foraker turned and together they started back across the battlements. "Didn't think it would," the Dwarf muttered, pulling his cloak close about him as the wind caught at them beyond the shelter of the wall. "Come back inside with me, Ohmsford, and I'll brew you a cup of hot ale. We'll wait for our hawk's return together."

Foraker's rough hand clapped his shoulder gently, and he hurried after.

The night slipped away, its hours empty and lingering and clouded with dark antic.i.p.ation.

Mist crept down out of the heights on cat's paws, thickening, shrouding the whole of the locks and dams, and draping Gnome and Dwarf armies alike in veils of damp, clinging haze until even the bright glow of the watchfires disappeared from view.

Jair Ohmsford fell asleep at midnight, still awaiting the return of Garet Jax. Slumped wearily in a high-backed captain's chair in a watch lounge while Foraker, Slanter, and Edain Elessedil talked in low voices over mugs of hot ale and a single candle lighted against the deepening gloom, he simply drifted off. One minute he was awake, listening in weary detachment to the drone of their voices, eyes closed against the light; in the next, he was sleeping.