High druid of Shannara_ Jarka Ruus - Terry Brooks [116]
But she was afraid now. The fear returned in paralyzing waves that stole away her strength and rooted her in place. It was the Warlock Lord she had summoned, the most powerful and dangerous creature that had ever lived. What could she hope to do with him?
The huge apparition rolled toward her once more, easing across the turgid waters.
— Speak my name —
She could not. She could do nothing but stare. She had summoned the Druids’ worst enemy, their most implacable foe, to ask for help that she couldn’t possibly hope to receive. It was the worst mistake she had ever made, and she had made many. She had not imagined that anyone but Walker would appear, just as he always did when she came to the Hadeshorn. But it was not the Hadeshorn of her world, but of the Forbidding, and it made perfect sense that in the world of the Jarka Ruus, of the banished people, of the despised and the hated, Brona’s would be the shade that would respond to any summons.
She sensed his impatience; he would not wait much longer for her response. If she failed to give it, he would depart, returning to the netherworld and stealing away her last hope. Refusing to speak with him was pointless. He would already know who she was and what she was doing there. He would know what she was seeking. “No one speaks your name,” she said.
— You will. You will dare anything, Ilse Witch. Haven’t you always —
She cringed inwardly but kept her face expressionless. “You are Brona,” she said. “You are the Warlock Lord.”
— I am as you name me, Straken. The name causes you to be afraid. It causes you to question what you have done. As it should. Tell me. Why do you summon me —
She mustered her courage, telling herself that he was dead, only a shade, and incapable of harming her physically. Alive, he would have been a very real threat. Dead, he was a threat only if she allowed him to be. If she kept him at bay and controlled her emotions, she was safe enough. She told herself that, but she was not entirely sure. It was not the Four Lands, after all. She was in another world, and the rules might be different.
“I am lost, and I want to go home again.”
— You carry your home inside you, dark and tattered as the robes I wear. You bear it in your heart, a sorry, empty vessel. Ask me something better —
Behind him, the lake rumbled in discontent, and a scattering of lesser shades reappeared at the edges of the Warlock Lord’s dark form, hovering cautiously.
“Who sent me here?” she asked him.
He made a sound that could have been laughter or something more terrible. Beneath his ragged form, the waters hissed and steamed.
— Not those you suspect, foolish girl —
“Not other Druids? They didn’t send me?”
— They are pawns —
Pawns? It made her pause. “Who then?”
The dark form shifted anew, blowing spray and cold into her face, sending shivers down her spine.
— Ask me something more interesting —
Frustrated, she took a moment to think. Shades were notorious for giving vague or incomplete answers to the living. The trick was in determining from those answers what was real and what was false. It would be doubly hard here.
“Why are you even speaking with me?” she asked impulsively. “I am Ard Rhys of the Druids, your enemies in life.”
— You are not what you see yourself to be. You are a changeling who dissembles and pretends. You hide whom you really are inside. Others fail to see it, but I know the truth. I speak to you because you are not like them. You are like me —
Although it made her cold inside, she