«What else did he tell you, Allanon?» she asked him quietly. «What else?»
There was a long pause. «That I shall not see him again in this world.»
The silence deepened. She was close now to the secret the Druid kept hidden, she realized. Rone Leah stirred uneasily in his chair, eyes shifting to find those of the Valegirl. There was uncertainty in those eyes, Brin saw. Rone did not want to know any more. She looked away. It was she who was the hope, and she who must know.
«Was there more?» she said.
Slowly Allanon straightened, dark robes wrapping close about him, and on his worn and haggard face, a small smile appeared. «There is an Ohmsford obsession with knowing the truth of all that is,” he replied. «Not a one of you has ever been content with less.»
«What did Bremen say?» she pressed.
The smile died away. «He said, Brin Ohmsford, that when I go from the Four Lands this time, I shall not come again.»
Valegirl and highlander stared at him in shocked disbelief. As certain as the cycle of the seasons was the return of Allanon to the Four Lands when the danger of the dark magic threatened the races. There had never been a time in memory when he had not come.
«I don’t believe you, Druid!» Rone insisted heatedly, unable to think of anything else to say, a trace of outrage in his voice.
Allanon shook his head slowly. «The age passes, Prince of Leah. I must pass with it.»
Brin swallowed against the tightness in her throat. «When… when will you… ?»
«When I must, Brin,” the Druid finished gently. «When it is time.»
Then he rose, a tall and weathered form as black as night and as steady as its coming. The great, gnarled hands reached out across the table. Without fully understanding why, the Valegirl and the highlander reached to clasp them in their own, joining for just an instant the three as one.
The Druid’s nod was brief and somehow final. «Tomorrow we ride east into the Anar — east until our journey is done. Go now and sleep. Be at peace.»
The great hands released their own and dropped away. «Go,” he said softly.
With a quick, uncertain glance at each other, Brin and Rone stood up and walked from the room. All the way out, they could feel the dark gaze following after.
They walked in silence down the hallway beyond. The sound of voices, distant and fragmented, wafted through the shadows of the empty hall and drifted disembodied from some unseen place. The air was thick with the smell of herbs and medicines, and they breathed in the aromas, distracted from their thoughts. When they reached the doors to their sleeping rooms, they stopped and stood together, not touching or looking at each other, sharing without speaking the impact of what they had been told.
It cannot be true, Brin thought, stunned. It cannot.
Rone turned to face her then, and his hands reached down to take hers. For the first time since their departure from Hadeshorn and the Valley of Shale, she felt close to him again.
«What he told us, Brin… what he said about not returning…» The highlander shook his head. «That was the reason we went to Paranor and he sealed away the Keep. He knew he would not be coming back…»
«Rone,” she said quickly and put her finger to his lips.
«I know. It’s just that I cannot believe it.»
«No.»
For a long moment they stared at each other. «I am afraid, Brin,” he said finally, his voice a whisper.
She nodded without speaking, then wrapped her arms about him and held him close. Then she stepped back again, kissed him lightly on the mouth and disappeared into her room.
Slowly, wearily Allanon turned from the closed door and seated himself once more at the small table. Eyes shifting from the flame of the oil lamp, he stared fixedly into the shadows beyond, his thoughts drifting. Once he would not have felt the need to reveal the secrets that were his. He would have disdained to do so. He was the keeper of the trust, after all; he was the last of the Druids and the power that had once been theirs belonged now to him. He had no need to confide in others.
It had been so with Shea Ohmsford. Much of the truth had been kept from Shea, left hidden for the little Valeman to discover on his own. It had been so as well with Brin’s father, when the Druid had taken him in quest of the Bloodfire. Yet Allanon’s resolve for secrecy, for deliberate and iron–willed refusal to tell to any — even those closest — all that he knew, had somehow weakened through the years gone past. Perhaps it was the aging, come upon him at last, or the inexorable passing of time that weighed so heavily upon him. Perhaps it was simply the need to share what he carried with some other living soul.
Perhaps.
He rose again from the table, another of night’s shadows floating beyond the reach of the light. A sudden breath of air, and the oil lamp went dark.
He had told so much more to the Valegirl and the highlander than to any of the others.
And still he had not told them all.
Chapter Twenty–Four
Dawn broke over the Eastland and the forests of the Anar, and the journey of the three who had come from Shady Vale resumed. Supplied with fresh provisions by the Healers of Storlock, they rode east out of the village into the woodlands beyond. Few saw them depart. A handful of white–robed Stors, sad–faced and voiceless, gathered at the stables behind the Center to lift their arms in farewell. Within minutes, the three had disappeared into the trees, gone as silently and as enigmatically as they had come.
It was the kind of autumn day fond memories conjure up of a milder season’s passing when winter snows lie deep about. It was warm and sun–filled, with the colors of the forest trees radiant and sprinkled with soft beams of light and the morning smells sweet and pleasant. Dark and chill as the days gone by had been in the wake of the passing of the late–year storms, this day was light and comforting with its dazzling blue skies and sunshine.
The promise of the day was lost, however, to Brin Ohmsford and Rone Leah. Haunted by Allanon’s dark revelation and by a tense expectation of what lay ahead, neither could share much of the warmth that the day had to offer. Separate and withdrawn, each within a dark covering of private emotions and secretive thoughts, Valegirl and highlander rode forward in determined silence through the dappled shadows of the great, dark trees, feeling only the cold that lay buried within themselves.
«Our path hereafter will be a treacherous one,” Allanon had told them as they gathered that morning before the stables where their horses had been tended, his voice low and strangely gentle. «All across the Eastland and through the forests of the Anar, the Wraiths will be watching for us. They know that we come; Paranor removed all question of that. They know as well that they must stop us before we reach the Maelmord. Gnomes will seek us, and where they do not, others who obey the walkers will. No path east into the Ravenshorn will be safe for us.»
His hands had come up then to rest upon their shoulders, drawing them close. «Still, we are but three and not so easily found. The Wraiths and their Gnome eyes will look two ways for our approach — north above the Rabb River and south out of Culhaven. Safe and unobstructed but for themselves, these are the approaches a wise man would choose. We will choose neither, therefore. Instead, we will pass where it is most dangerous — not only to us, but to them as well. We will pass directly east into the central Anar — through the Wolfsktaag, Darklin Reach, and Olden Moor. Older magics than theirs dwell within those regions — magics that they will be hesitant to challenge. The Wolfsktaag are forbidden to the Gnomes, and they will not enter, even though the Wraiths command it. There are things there more dangerous than the Gnomes we seek to avoid, but most lie dormant. If we are quick and cautious, we should pass through unharmed. Darklin Reach and the Moor are the haunts of other magics yet, but there perhaps we shall find some more friendly to our cause than to theirs…»