Ilse Witch - Terry Brooks [206]
It was growing cold, and he wished he still had his cloak, but he had lost it in the flight here. He looked at Ryer Ord Star, then moved over to tuck her robes closer about her. She was shivering, though clearly unaware of it, and he put his arms around her and held her against him for warmth. What would they do if Tamis found no one else alive? What if the tracker herself failed to return? Bek closed his eyes against his doubts and fears. It did no good to dwell on them. There was nothing he could do to change things. All he could do was to make the best of the situation, bleak as it was.
He must have dozed for a while, exhausted from the day’s events, because the next thing he remembered was waking to the sounds of someone’s approach. Yet it wasn’t so much the sounds of approach that alerted him as it was his sense of the other’s nearness. He lifted his head from the crook of Ryer Ord Star’s shoulder and blinked at the darkness. Nothing moved, but something was there, still too far away to see, but coming directly toward them.
And not from the direction of the ruins, but from the direction of the airship.
Bek straightened, eased himself away from the seer, and came to his feet, listening. The night was silent save for the soft patter of a slow rain on the forest canopy. Bek reached back for the Sword of Shannara, then took his hand away. Instead, he moved to one side, deeper into the shadows. He could feel the other’s presence as if it were an aura of heat or light. He could feel it as he could the skin of his own body.
A cloaked figure materialized in front of him, appearing all at once, wraithlike. The figure was small and slight and not physically imposing, and the boy could not identify it from its look. It approached without slowing, robed and hooded, a mystery waiting to be uncovered. Bek watched in fascination, unable to decide what to do.
An arm lifted within the robes and stretched out toward Ryer Ord Star. “Tell me what has happened,” a woman said, her voice soft but commanding. “Why are you here? You were instructed—”
Then she saw Bek. It must have startled her, because she stiffened and her arm dropped away abruptly. Something in her carriage changed, and it seemed to him that she was unsettled by his unexpected presence.
“Who are you?” she asked.
There was no friendliness in her voice, no hint of the softness that had been there only seconds before. She had changed in the blink of an eye, and he did not think he was the better off for it. But he heard something familiar in her voice, too, something that connected them so strongly he could not miss it. He stared at her, sudden recognition flooding through him.
“Who are you?” she repeated.
He knew her now, and the certainty of it left him breathless. Years dropped away, shed like rainwater from his skin, and a kaleidoscope of patchwork memories returned. Most he had forgotten until his use of the Sword of Shannara had caused them to resurface. They were of her, holding him close as she ran through smoke and fire, through screams and shouts. They were of her, tucking him away in a dark, close place, hiding him from the death that was all around them. They were of her, a child herself, long ago, in a place and time he could only barely remember.
“Grianne,” he answered, speaking her name aloud for the first time since infancy. “It’s me, Grianne. It’s your brother.”
Here ends Book One of The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara. Book Two, Antrax, will reveal the secrets of Castledown and its magic as the Druid Walker and his companions confront the mysterious creature that wards both.
Table of Contents
Chapter ONE
Chapter TWO
Chapter THREE
Chapter FOUR
Chapter FIVE
Chapter SIX
Chapter SEVEN
Chapter EIGHT
Chapter NINE
Chapter TEN
Chapter ELEVEN
Chapter TWELVE
Chapter THIRTEEN
Chapter FOURTEEN
Chapter FIFTEEN
Chapter SIXTEEN
Chapter SEVENTEEN
Chapter EIGHTEEN
Chapter NINETEEN
Chapter TWENTY
Chapter TWENTY-ONE
Chapter TWENTY-TWO
Chapter TWENTY-THREE
Chapter TWENTY-FOUR
Chapter TWENTY-FIVE
Chapter TWENTY-SIX
Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN