The First King of Shannara - Terry Brooks [98]
They slept near dawn of the third day, finding shelter this time in a grove of towering hardwoods set back within a blind draw at the edge of the Kensrowe. They had traveled far north of where they had come into the valley, and were now close to its west end.
Ahead lay the dark stretch of the Innisbore and the pass through Baen Draw that would take them to the Breakline. Tay had found no trace of Gnomes that day. He was beginning to believe they had outdistanced their pursuers and would lose them for good in the tangle of the mountains ahead:
Tay rose early and found Jerle Shannara already awake, standing at the edge of the camp looking out into the new day. It was gloomy and dark once more, the weather unchanged.
The big man turned at his approach. ‘Tay. Too short a night, wasn’t it?”
Tay shrugged. “I slept well enough.”
“Not like you’re used to sleeping, though. Not like you did at Paranor with the Druids, in a bed, in a dry room, with hot food waiting when you rose.”
Tay moved up beside him, avoiding his gaze. “It doesn’t matter. The Druids are all dead. Paranor is gone. That part of my life is over.”
His friend’s blue eyes studied him shrewdly. “Something bothers you. I know you too well to miss it. You’ve been distracted these past few days. Is it Retten Kipp? Is it what you had to do to release him from his pain?”
“No,” Tay answered truthfully. “It is more complicated than that.”
Jerle waited a moment. “Am I to guess or would you rather I simply left the matter alone?”
Tay hesitated, not certain he wanted to give any answer at all.
“It has to do with coming back to something after being away for too long,” he replied finally, choosing his words with care. “I was gone from the Westland for fifteen years. Now I am back, but I don’t seem to belong anymore. I don’t know where I should be or how I should act or what I should do. If it were not for this search, I would be completely lost.”
“Maybe the search is enough for now,” his friend suggested gently. “Maybe the rest will come with time.”
Tay shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think I am changed and cannot change back again. Those years at Paranor shaped me in ways I did not begin to understand until now. I feel caught between who I was and who I am. I don’t feel like I am either one or the other.”
“But you have just come home, Tay. You cannot expect everything to feel the same at first. Of course it feels strange.”
Tay looked at his friend. “I think maybe I shall have to go away again, Jerle, when this is over.”
Jerle Shannara pushed back his blond hair from his eyes, the mist’s dampness glistening on his face. “I would be very sorry to see that happen.” He paused. “But I would understand, Tay. And we will still be friends forever.”
He put his hand on Tay’s shoulder and kept it there. Tay smiled in response. “We will always be friends,” he agreed.
They rode west once more into the damp haze. The rain quickened and turned heavier as the day wore on. They made their way across the last quarter of the Sarandanon, riders cloaked in the gloom, all but invisible even to each other. It was as if the world from which they had come and into which they were going had melted away. It was as if nothing remained but the small bit of earth across which they rode, materializing ahead, disappearing behind, never there for longer than the few moments it took to pass by.
They came to Baen Draw, the entrance through the Kensrowe to the Breakline, at dusk, came upon it as the light was failing completely. There they found the Gnome Hunters once more, and again