The other’s hand lifted in warning. “Not so fast. We won’t be leaving the Jut right away, probably not for another three days or so. The injured shouldn’t be moved just yet. But I’ll want you to leave sooner. Tomorrow, in fact. Damson’s a smart girl with a good head on her shoulders, but she’s wilful. I’ve been thinking matters over a bit since you asked me whether she might attempt to bring the Valemen here. I could be wrong; she might try to do just that. You have to make certain she doesn’t.”
“I will.”
“Out the back door, then—as I’ve said. And you go alone.”
Morgan’s brow furrowed.
“Alone, lad. Your friends stay with me. First, you can’t be wandering about Callahorn with a pair of Dwarves in tow—even if they were up to it, which at least the one isn’t. The Federation would have you in irons in two minutes. And second, we can’t be taking any chances after all the treachery that’s been done. No one is to know your plans.”
The Highlander considered a moment. Padishar was right. There was no point in taking needless risks. He would be better off going by himself and telling no one what he was about—especially Steff and Teel. He almost gave voice to what he was thinking, then thought better of it. Instead, he simply nodded.
“Good. The matter is settled. Except for one thing.” Padishar climbed back to his feet. “Come with me.”
He took Morgan through the camp and into the largest of the caves that opened on the cliffs backing the bluff, led him past the bay in which the wounded were being cared for and into the chambers beyond. The tunnels began there, a dozen or more, opening off each other, disappearing back into the darkness. Padishar had picked up a torch on their way in; now he touched it to one that burned from an iron bracket hammered into the cave wall, glanced about for a moment to reassure himself that no one was paying any special attention, then beckoned Morgan ahead. Ignoring the tunnels, he guided the Highlander through the piles of stores to the very deepest part of the caves, several hundred feet back into the cliff rock to a wall where crates were stacked twenty feet high. It was quiet there, the noise left behind. Again he glanced back, scanning the darkness.
Then, handing his torch to Morgan, he reached up with both hands, fitted his fingers into the seams of the crates and pulled. An entire section swung free, a false front on hidden hinges that opened into a tunnel beyond.
“Did you see how I did that, lad?” he asked softly. Morgan nodded.
Padishar took back his torch and poked it inside. Morgan leaned forward. The walls of the secret tunnel twisted and wound downward into the rock until they were lost from view.
“It goes all the way through the mountain,” Padishar said. “Follow it to its end and you come out above the Parma Key just south of the Dragon’s Teeth, east of the Kennon Pass.” He looked at Morgan pointedly. “If you were to attempt to find your way through the other passageways—the ones I keep a guard on for show—we might never see you again. Understand?”
He shoved the secret door closed again and stepped back. “I’m showing you all this now because, when you’re ready to go, I won’t be with you. I’ll be out there, keeping a close watch on your backside.” He gave Morgan a small, hard smile. “Be certain you get clear quickly.”
They went back through the storage chambers and out through the main cavern to the bluff. It was dark now, the last of the daylight faded into dusk. The outlaw chief stopped, stretched and took a deep breath of evening air.
“Listen to me, lad,” he said quietly. “There’s one thing more. You have to stop brooding about what happened to that sword you carry. You can’t haul that burden around with you and expect to stay clearheaded; it’s much too heavy a load, even for a determined fellow like you. Lay it down. Leave it behind you. You’ve got enough heart in you to manage without it.”
He knows about this morning, Morgan realized at once. He knows and he’s telling me that it’s all right.
Padishar sighed. “Every bone in my body aches, but none of them aches nearly so bad as my heart. I hate what’s happened here. I hate what’s been done to us.” He looked squarely at Morgan. “That’s what I mean about useless baggage. You think about it.”
He turned and strode off into the dark. Morgan almost called him back. He even took a step after him, thinking that now he would tell him his suspicions about the traitor. It would have been easy to do so. It would have freed him of the frustration he felt at having to keep the matter to himself. It would have absolved him of the responsibility of being the only one who knew.
He wrestled with his indecision as he had wrestled with it all that day.
But once again he lost.
He slept after that, wrapping himself in his cloak and curling up on the ground within the shadow of the aspen. The earth had dried after the morning rain; the night was warm, and the air was filled with the smells of the forest. His sleep was dreamless and complete. Worries and indecisions slipped away like water shed from his skin. Banished were the wraiths of his lost magic and of the traitor, driven from his mind by the weariness that wrapped protectively about him and gave him peace. He drifted, suspended in the passing of time.
And then he came awake.
A hand clutched his shoulder, tightening. It happened so abruptly, so shockingly, that for a moment he thought he was being attacked. He thrashed himself clear of his cloak and bounded to his feet, wheeling about frantically in the dark.
He found himself face to face with Steff.
The Dwarf was crouched before him, wrapped in his blankets, his hair stiff and spiky, his scarred face pale and drawn and sweating despite the night’s comfortable feel. His dark eyes burned with fever, and there was something frightened and desperate in their look.
“Teel’s gone,” he whispered harshly.
Morgan took a deep, steadying breath. “Gone where?” he managed, one hand still fastened tightly about the handle of the dagger at his waist.
Steff shook his head, his breathing ragged in the night’s silence, “I don’t know. She left about an hour ago. I saw her. She thought I was sleeping, but...” He trailed off. “Something’s wrong, Morgan. Something.” He could barely speak. “Where is she? Where’s Teel?”
And instantly, Morgan Leah knew.
Chapter Thirty
It was on that same night that Par Ohmsford went after the Sword of Shannara for the final time.
Darkness had descended on the city of Tyrsis, a cloak of impenetrable black. The rain and mist had turned into fog so thick that the roofs and walls of buildings, the carts and stalls of the markets, even the stones of the streets disappeared into it as if they had melted away. Neither moon nor stars could be seen, and the lights of the city flickered like candles that might be snuffed out at any instant.
Damson Rhee led the Valemen from the garden shed into the haze, cloaked and hooded once more. The fog was suffocating; it was damp and heavy and it clung to clothing and skin alike in a fine sheen. The day had ended early, shoved into nightfall by the appearance of the fog as it rose out of the grasslands below the bluff and built upon itself like a tidal wave until it simply rolled over Tyrsis’ walls and buried her. The chill of the previous night had been replaced by an equally unpleasant warmth that smelled of must and rot. All day the people of the city muttered in ill-disguised concern over the strangeness of the weather; when the last of the day’s thin, gray light began to fade, they barricaded themselves in their homes as if they were under siege.
Damson and the Valemen found themselves virtually alone in the silent, shrouded streets. When travelers passed by, once or twice only, their presence was but momentary, as if ghosts that had ventured forth from the netherworld only to be swallowed back up again. There were sounds, but they were distant and unrecognizable, muffled by the haze so completely that they lacked both a source and a direction. Footsteps, the soft thudding of boots, rose into the silence from out of nowhere and disappeared the same way. Things moved about them, shapes and forms without definition that floated rather than walked and that came and went with the blink of an eye.