High druid of Shannara_ Jarka Ruus - Terry Brooks [9]
“Kermadec!”
The Rock Troll awoke and rose to stand beside her, staring at the phenomenon without speaking. The intensity of the fire increased and diminished as if the flames were breathing, as if the air were changing in some indefinable way, first lending strength to the invisible fuel, then leeching it away. All around, illuminated by tendrils of light, the jumbled rocks became ghostly spectators. Grianne eased forward cautiously, just a step or two at a time, eyes shifting back and forth among the shadows in an effort to find what was out there. Something had to be; something had to have initiated the blaze. But she could detect no life, no sign of anything living save Kermadec and herself. Someone had lit the flames from another place, someone or something that did not need to be present to work whatever magic was intended.
“Mistress!” Kermadec hissed.
Flashes of light appeared in the air above the fire, sudden flares of brightness that suggested small explosions. But they made no sound and left no residue of smoke or ash, as if giant fireflies in the darkness. They were moving in circular fashion, widening their sweep and rising higher as their numbers increased. Below, unchanged, the fire continued to burn.
Grianne reached out with her magic to explore this mix of burning air and flameless light, using the wishsong to investigate what was there that she wasn’t seeing. She found other magic at once, concentrated and powerful, dispatched from another place to this one. It was as she had thought. She detected, as well, that something was responding to it, something that was able to find purchase in this ruined land where it might not have been able to do so in one less poisoned. It was not something she could put a name to, but it was there nevertheless, pressing up against the fire and the light.
A face in the window, she thought suddenly. Perhaps not just from somewhere in this world, but from another plane of existence altogether.
She probed harder with her magic, trying to break through to whatever was out there, to generate a response that would reveal something more. Her efforts were rewarded almost at once. Something small and dark appeared at the edges of the light, like a wraith come out of the netherworld, not altogether shapeless, but lacking any clear definition. It slid in and out of the light like a child playing hide and seek, first here, then there, never quite revealing itself altogether, never quite showing what it was.
Kermadec was whispering hurriedly, anxiously, telling her to back away, to give herself more space. It wasn’t safe to be so close, he was saying. She ignored him; she was caught up in the link she had established between the foreign magic and her own. Something was there, quick and insubstantial, just out of reach.
And then all at once it wasn’t hiding anymore. It was there, right in front of her, its face turned full into hers, edges and angles caught in the light. She caught her breath in spite of herself. The face was vaguely human, but in no other way recognizable. Malevolence masked its features in a way she had not thought possible, so darkly threatening, so hate-filled and remorseless, that even in her time as the Ilse Witch, she had not experienced its like. Dark shadows draped it like strands of thick hair, shifting with the light, changing the look of it from instant to instant. Eyes glimmered like blue ice, cool and appraising. There was recognition in those eyes; whoever was there, hiding in the light, knew who she was.
Grianne lashed out at the face with ferocious intent, surprising even herself with her vehemence. She felt such loathing, such rage, that she could not stop herself from reacting, and the deed was done before she could think better of it. Her magic exploded into the face, which disappeared instantly, taking with it the flashes and the burning air, leaving only darkness