Padishar was nowhere to be seen.
After eating, Par went back upstairs to gather his things together, anticipating that, whatever the result of his confrontation with Padishar, it would likely involve a move.
Damson followed him up. “You grow restless,” she observed when they were alone. She seated herself on the edge of his pallet, shaking back her reddish mane. “An outlaw’s life is not quite what you had in mind, is it?”
He smiled faintly. “Sitting about in warehouses and basements isn’t quite what I had in mind. What is Padishar waiting around for?”
She shrugged. “What we all wait around for from time to time—that little voice buried somewhere deep inside that tells us what to do next. It might be intuition or it might be common sense or then again it might be the advent of circumstances beyond our control.” She gave him a wicked smile. “Is it speaking now to you?”
“Something certainly is.” He sat down next to her. “Why are you still here, Damson? Does Padishar keep you?”
She laughed. “Hardly. I come and go as I please. He knows I was not the one who betrayed him. Or you, I think.”
“Then why stay?”
She considered him thoughtfully for a moment. “Maybe I stay because you interest me,” she said at last. She paused as if she wanted to say more, but thought of better of it. She smiled. “I have never met anyone who uses real magic. Just the pretend kind, like me.”
She reached up and deftly plucked a coin from behind his ear. It was carved from cherry wood. She handed it to him. It bore her likeness on one side and his on the other. He looked up at her in surprise. “That’s very good.”
“Thank you.” He thought she colored slightly. “You may keep it with the other for good luck.”
He tucked the coin into his pocket. They sat silent for a time, exchanging uncertain glances. “There isn’t much difference, you know, between your kind of magic and mine,” he said finally. “They both rely on illusion.”
She shook her head. “No, Par. You are wrong. One is an acquired skill, the other innate. Mine is learned and, once learned, has become all it can. Yours is constantly growing, and its lessons are limitless. Don’t you see? My magic is a trade, a way to make a living. Your magic is much more; it is a gift around which you must build your life.”
She smiled, but there was a hint of sadness in it. She stood up. “I have work to do. Finish your packing.” She moved past him and disappeared down the ladder.
The morning hours crawled past and still Padishar did not return. Par busied himself doing nothing, growing anxious for something—anything—to happen. Coll and Morgan drifted over from time to time, and he spoke to them of his intention to confront the outlaw chief. Neither seemed very optimistic about his chances.
The skies grew more threatening, the wind picking up until it made a rather mournful howl about the loose-fitting jambs and shutters of the old building they were housed in, but still it didn’t rain. Card games were played to pass the time and topics of conversation exhausted.
It was nearing midafternoon when Padishar returned. He slipped in through the front doors without a word, crossed the room to Par and motioned him to follow. He took the Valeman into a small office situated at the back on the main floor and shut the door behind them.
When they were alone, he seemed at a loss for words.
“I have been thinking rather carefully about what we should do,” he said finally. “Or, if you prefer, what we should not do. Any mistake we make now could be our last.”
He pulled Par over to a bench that had been shoved back against the wall and sat them both down. “There’s the problem of this traitor,” he said quietly. His eyes were bright and hard with something Par couldn’t read. “I was certain at first that it must be one of us. But it isn’t me or Damson. Damson is above suspicion. It isn’t you. It might be your brother; but it isn’t him either, is it?”
He made it a statement of fact rather than a question. Par shook his head in agreement.
“Or the Highlander.”
Par shook his head a second time.
“That leaves Ciba Blue, Stasas, and Drutt. Blue is likely dead; that means that if he’s the one, he was stupid enough to let himself get killed in the bargain. Doesn’t sound like Blue. And the other two have been with me almost from the first. It is inconceivable that either of them would betray me—whatever the price offered or the reason supplied. Their hatred of the Federation is nearly a match for my own.”
The muscles in his jaw tightened. “So perhaps it isn’t any of us after all. But who else could have discovered our plan? Do you see what I mean? Your friend the Highlander mentioned this morning something he had almost forgotten. When we first came into the city and went down to the market stalls, he thought he saw Hirehone. He thought then he was mistaken; now he wonders Forgetting momentarily the fact that Hirehone held my life in his hands any number of times before this and did not betray me, how would he have gone about doing so now? No one, outside of Damson and those I brought with me, knew the where, when, how or why of what we were about. Yet those Federation soldiers were waiting for us. They knew.”
Par had forgotten momentarily his plan to tell Padishar he was fed up with matters. “Then who was it?” he asked eagerly. “Who could it have been?”
Padishar’s smile was forced. “The question plagues me like flies a sweating horse. I don’t know yet. You may rest assured that sooner or later I will. For the moment, it doesn’t matter. We have bigger fish to fry.”
He leaned forward. “I spent the morning with a man I know, a man who has access to what happens within the higher circles of Federation authority in Tyrsis. He is a man I am certain of, one I can trust. Even Damson doesn’t know of him. He told me some interesting things. It seems that you and Damson came to my rescue just in time. Rimmer Dall arrived early the next morning to see personally to my questioning and ultimate disposal.” The outlaw chief’s voice emitted a sigh of satisfaction. “He was very disappointed to find I had left early.”
Padishar shifted his weight and brought his head close to Par’s. “I know you are impatient for something to happen, Par. I can read the signs of it in you as if you were a notice posted on the wall by my bed. But haste results in an early demise in this line of work, so caution is always necessary.” He smiled again. “But you and I, lad—we’re a force to be reckoned with in this business of the Federation and their games-playing. Fate brought you to me, and she has something definite in mind for the two of us, something that will shake the Federation and their Coalition Council and their Seekers and all the rest right to the foundation of their being!”
One hand clenched before Par’s face, and the Valeman flinched back in spite of himself. “So much effort has been put into hiding all traces of the old People’s Park—the Bridge of Sendic destroyed and rebuilt, the old park walled away, guards running all about like ants at a picnic dinner! Why? Because there’s something down there that they don’t want anyone to know about! I can feel it, lad! I am as convinced of it now as I was when we went in five nights ago!”
“The Sword of Shannara?” Par whispered.
Padishar’s smile was genuine this time. “I’d stake ten years of my life on it! But there’s still only one way to find out, isn’t there?”
He brought his hands up to grip Par’s shoulders. The weathered, sharp-boned face was a mask of cunning and ruthless determination. The man who had led them for the past five days had disappeared; this was the old Padishar Creel speaking.
“The man I spoke to, the one who has ears in the Federation chambers, tells me that Rimmer Dall believes we’ve fled. He thinks us back within the Parma Key. Whatever we came here for we’ve given up on, he’s decided. He lingers in the city only because he has not decided what needs doing next. I suggest we give him some direction, young Par.”