Ilse Witch - Terry Brooks [48]
Dark magic thrived within the Wilderun, born of other times and peoples, of a world that flourished before the Great Wars. Magic rooted in the earth here, and the Morgawr drew his strength from its presence. He was not like her, — he had not been born to the magic. He had gained his mastery through leeching it away and building it up, through study and experimentation, and through slow, torturous exposure to side effects that had changed him irrevocably from what he had been born.
Looking up from her work, the Ilse Witch saw the solitary candles set in opposite holders by the entry to the room flicker slightly. Shadows wavered and settled anew on the worn stone floor. She set aside the map and rose to greet him. Her gray robes fell about her slender form in a soft rustle, and she shook back her long dark hair from her childlike face and startling blue eyes. Just a girl, a visitor come upon her unexpectedly might have thought. Just a girl approaching womanhood. But she was nothing of that and hadn’t been for a long time. The Morgawr would not make such a mistake, although he had once. It took her only a heartbeat to set him straight, to let him know that she was a girl no longer, an apprentice no more, but a grown woman and his equal.
Things had not been the same between them since, and she sensed that they never would be again.
He appeared in the entry, all size and darkness within his long black cloak. His body was huge and muscular and still human in shape, but he was looking more and more like the Mwellrets with whom he spent so much of his time. His skin was scaly and gray and hairless. His features were blunt and unremarkable, and his eyes were reptilian. He could shape-shift like the rets, but far better and with greater versatility, for he had the magic to aid him. Numerous once, the rets had been reduced over the past five hundred years to a small community. They were secretive and manipulative of others, and perhaps that was why the Morgawr admired them so.
He looked at her from out of the cowl’s darkness, the green slits of his eyes empty and cold. Once, she would have been terrified to have him regard her so. Once, she would have done anything to make him look away. Now, she returned his gaze, her own colder and emptier still.
“Allardon Elessedil is dead,” he said softly. “Killed by mistake by his own guards in an assassination attempt by Elves who had been mind-altered. Who do we know who has the ability to use magic in that way?”
It was not a question that required an answer, and so she ignored it. “While you were gone,” she replied calmly, “a castaway was found floating in the Blue Divide. He carried with him an Elessedil bracelet and a map. A Wing Rider bore him to the village of Bracken Clell. One of my spies told me of him. When I went to have a look, I discovered who he was. Kael Elessedil. The map he carried was already on its way to his brother, but I extracted much of its writings from the memories in his head.”
“It is not your place to decide to take the life of a King!” the Morgawr hissed angrily. “You should have consulted with me before acting!”
She went very still. “I do not need your permission to do what I deem necessary. Ever. The taking of a life—of anyone’s life—is my province and mine alone!”
She might as well have told him the sun would rise in less than an hour. His reaction to her words was indifferent, his response unreadable, and his body posture unchanged. “What of this map?” he asked.
“The map is of a treasure, one of magic formed of words, come out of the Old World from before the Great Wars.” She used her voice to draw him close, to bind him to her own sense of urgency and need.