“One of them?” Morgan asked quietly.
The other gave a sharp laugh, like a bark. “I was with the Federation! I tracked for them!”
As quick as that Morgan Leah’s perception of Horner Dees changed. The big, bearish fellow was no longer just a gruff, old Tracker whose best days were behind him; he was no longer even a friend. Morgan started to back away and then realized there was nowhere to back to. He reached for his broadsword.
“Highlander!” Dees snapped, freezing him. The big man clenched one massive fist, then relaxed it. “Like I said, that was long ago. I been gone from those people twenty years. Settle back. You haven’t any reason to fear me.”
He placed his hands in his lap, palms up. “Anyway, that’s how I came to see the Highlands, believe it or not—in the service of the Federation. I was tracking Dwarf rebels for them, hunting the Rainbow Lake and Silver River country. Never found much. Dwarves are like foxes; they go to ground quick as a wink when they know they’re being hunted.” He smiled unexpectedly. “I didn’t try very hard in any case. It was a worthless sort of job.”
Morgan released his grip on the broadsword and sat back again.
“I was with them long enough to find out about Pe Ell,” the other went on, and now his eyes were distant and troubled. “I knew most of what was happening back then. Rimmer Dall had me slated to be a Seeker. Can you imagine? Me? I thought that wolf’s head stuff was nonsense. But I learned about Pe Ell while Dall was working on me. Saw him come and go once, when he didn’t know it. Dall arranged for me to see because he liked putting one over on Pe Ell. It was a sort of game with the two of them, each trying to show up the other. Anyway, I saw him and heard what he did. A few others heard things too. Everyone knew to stay away from him.”
He signed. “Just a little while after that, I quit the bunch of them. Left when no one was looking, came north through the Eastland, traveled about until I reached Rampling Steep, and decided that was where I’d live. Away from the madness south, the Federation, the Seekers, all of it.”
“All of it?” Morgan repeated doubtfully, still trying to decide what to make of Horner Dees. “Even the Shadowen?”
Dees blinked. “What do you know of the Shadowen, Morgan Leah?”
Morgan leaned forward. Windblown mist had left Horner’s face damp and shining, and droplets of water clung to his hair and beard. “I want to know something from you first. Why are you telling me all this?”
The other’s smile was strangely gentle. “Because I want you to know about Pe Ell, and you can’t know about him without knowing about me. I like you, Highlander. You remind me a little of myself when I was your age—kind of reckless and headstrong, not afraid of anything. I don’t want there to be secrets about me that might come out in a bad way. Like if Pe Ell should remember who I am. I want you for a friend and ally. I don’t trust anyone else.”
Morgan studied him wordlessly for a moment. “You might do better with someone else.”
“I’ll chance it. Now, how about it? I’ve answered your question. You tell me how you know about the Shadowen.”
Morgan drew up his knees and hugged them to his chest, making up his mind. Finally, he said, “My best friend was a Dwarf named Steff. He was with the Resistance. The woman he loved was a Shadowen, and she killed him. I killed her.”
Horner Dees arched his eyebrows quizzically. “I was given to understand that nothing but magic could kill those things.”
Morgan reached down and drew out the shattered end of the Sword of Leah. “There was magic in this Sword once,” he said. “Allanon put it there himself—three hundred years ago. I broke it during a battle with the Shadowen in Tyrsis before the start of all this. Even so, there was still enough magic left to avenge Steff and save myself.” He studied the blade speculatively, hefted it, waited in vain to feel its warmth, then looked back at Dees. “Maybe there’s still some. Anyway, that’s why Quickening brought me along. This Sword. She said there was a chance it could be restored.”
Horner Dees frowned. “Are you to use it against Belk then?”
“I don’t know,” Morgan admitted. “I haven’t been told anything except that it could be made whole again.” He slipped the broken blade back into its scabbard. “Promises,” he said and sighed.
“She seems like the kind who keeps hers,” the other observed after a moment’s thought. “Magic to find magic. Magic to prevail over magic. Us against the Stone King.” He shook his head. “It’s too complicated for me. You just be sure you remember what I said about Pe Ell. You can’t turn your back on him. And you mustn’t go up against him either. You leave that to me.”
“You?” Morgan declared in surprise.
“That’s right. Me. Or Walker Boh. One-armed or not, he’s a match for Pe Ell or I’ve misjudged him completely. You concentrate on keeping the girl safe.” He paused. “Shouldn’t be too hard, considering how you feel about each other.”
Morgan flushed in spite of himself. “It’s mostly me that’s feeling anything,” he muttered awkwardly.
“She’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” the old man said, smiling at the other’s discomfort. “I don’t know what she is, human or elemental or what, but she can charm the boots right off you. She looks at you, that face softens, she speaks the way she does, and you’ll do anything for her. I should know. I wasn’t ever going to come back to this place and here I am. She’s done it to all of us.”
Morgan nodded. “Even to Pe Ell. He’s as much hers as the rest of us.”
But Dees shook his head. “I don’t know, Highlander. You look careful next chance you get. He’s hers, but he isn’t. She walks a fine line with that one. He could turn quick as a cat. That’s why I tell you to look after her. You remember what he is. He’s not here to do us any favors. He’s here for himself. Sooner or later, he’ll revert to form.”
“I think so, too,” Morgan agreed.
Dees gave a satisfied smirk. “But it won’t be so easy for him now, will it? Because we’ll be watching.”
They packed up, tightened their cloaks against the weather, and stepped back out into the downpour. They continued to follow the shoreline as the afternoon lengthened, reaching the northernmost point of the peninsula without finding anything, and turned back again into the city. The rain finally ended, changing to a fine mist that hung like smoke against the gray sky and buildings. The air warmed. Shadows yawned and stretched in alleyways and nooks like waking spirits, and steam rose off the streets.
From somewhere underground the rumble of the Maw Grint sounded, a distant thunder that shook the earth.
“I’m beginning to think we’re not ever going to find anything,” Horner Dees muttered at one point.
They followed the dark corridors of the streets and searched the brume that lay all about, the doorways and windows that gaped open like mouths in search of food, and the flat, glistening walkways and passages. Everywhere the city lay abandoned and dead, stripped of life and filled with hollow, empty sounds. It walled them away with its stone and its silence; it wrapped about them with such persistence that despite memory and reason it seemed that the world beyond must have fallen away and that Eldwist was all that remained.
They grew weary with the approach of evening; the sameness of their surroundings dulled their senses and wore against their resistance. They began to stray a bit, to wander closer to the walkway’s edge, to look upward more often at the stone heights that loomed all about, and to give themselves over to a dangerous and persistent wish that something—anything—would happen. Their boredom was acute, their sense of being unable to change or affect the things about them maddening. They had been in Eldwist almost a week. How much longer would they be forced to remain?