Wordlessly, Brin nodded. The Grimpond laughed mirthlessly and glided closer. «All that is and all that was of the dark magic traces to the book, bound by threads that close you and yours tight about. Wars of Races, wars of man — faerie demons, all one hand. Like rhymes of the voice, all are one. The humankind come to the dark magic, seeking power that they cannot hope to make theirs — seeking then death. They creep to the hiding place of the book, drawn by the lure, by the need. One time to the face of death, one time to the pit of night. Each time they find what they seek and are lost to it, changed from moral self to spirit. Bearers and Wraiths, all are one. And the evil is one with them.»
The voice faded. Brin’s mind raced, thinking through the meaning of what she had been told. One time to the face of death… Skull Mountain. Past and present were one, Skull Bearer and Mord Wraith — that was the Grimpond’s meaning. They were born of the same evil. And somehow, in some way, all of it was bound together in a single source.
«The dark magic made them all,” she said quickly. «Warlock Lord and Skull Bearers in the time of my great–grandfather; Mord Wraiths now. That is your meaning, isn’t it?»
«Is it?» the voice hissed softly, teasingly. «One of one? Where lies the Warlock Lord now, Valegirl? Who now gives voice to the magic and sends the Mord Wraiths forth?»
Brin stared at the apparition wordlessly. Was it saying that the Warlock Lord had come back again? But no, that was impossible…
«That voice is dark when it speaks to humankind,” the Grimpond intoned in a singsong hiss. «That voice is born of the magic, born of the lore. It is found in different ways — by some in printed word, by some… in song!»
Brin went cold. «I am not of their kind!» she snapped. «I do not use the dark magic!»
The Grimpond laughed. «Nor does any, Valegirl. The magic uses them. There is the key of all that you seek. There is all you need know.»
Brin struggled to understand. «Speak more,” she urged.
«More? More of what?» The shade’s misted form shimmered darkly. «Would you have me tell you of the eyes — eyes that follow you, eyes that seek you out at every turn?» The Valegirl stiffened. «Love sees you in those eyes when they are the eyes that command the crystal. But dark intent sees you likewise when the eyes are sightless and born of your own birthright. Do you see? Are your own eyes open? Not so the eyes of the Druid when he lived, dark shadow of his time. They were closed to the greatest part of the truth, closed to what was apparent, had he thought it through. He did not see the truth, poor Allanon. He saw only the Warlock Lord come again; he saw only what was as what is — not as what could be. Deceived, poor Allanon. Even in death, he walked where the dark magic willed that he should — and when he came to his end, he was seen a fool.»
Brin’s mind spun. «The walkers — they knew he was coming, didn’t they? They knew he could come into the Wolfsktaag. That was why the Jachyra was there.»
Laughter swelled and echoed in the silence of the mist. «Truth wins out! But once only, perhaps. Trust not what the Grimpond says. Shall I speak more? Shall I tell you of your journey to the Maelmord with the clown Prince of Leah and his lost magic? Oh, so desperate he is to have that magic, so much in need of what will destroy him. You suspect it will destroy him, don’t you, Valegirl? Let him have it, then, so that he might have his wish and become one with all who shared that wish before and passed into death. His is the strong arm that leads you to a similar fate. Ah, shall I tell you of how you, too, shall come to die?»
Brin’s dusky face tightened. «Tell me what you will, shade. But I will listen only to the truth.»
«So? Am I to judge what is true and what is not, where we speak of what is yet to be?» The Grimpond’s voice was low and taunting. «The book of your life lies open before me, though there are pages yet to write. What shall be written shall be written by you, not by words that I may speak. You are the last of three, each to live in the shadow of the others, each to seek to be free of that shadow, each to grow apart therefrom and then to reach back to the ones who went before. Yet your reach is darkest on the land.»
Brin hesitated uncertainly. Shea Ohmsford must be the first, her father the second, she the third. Each had sought to be free of the legacy of the Elven house of Shannara from which all were descended. But what did that last part mean?
«Ah, your death awaits you in the land of the walkers,” the Grimpond hissed softly. «Within the pit of dark, within the breast of the magic you seek to destroy, there shall you find your death. It is foreordained, Valegirl, for you carry its seeds within your own body.»
The Valegirl’s hand came up impatiently. «Then tell me how to reach it, Grimpond. Give me a way into the Maelmord that will shield me from the eyes of the walkers. Let me go to my death quickly, if you see it so.»
The Grimpond laughed darkly. «Clever girl, you would seek to have me tell you forthright what you have truly come here to discover. I know what brings you hence, child of the Elfkind. You can hide nothing from me, for I have lived since all that was and will live for all that is to be. It is my choice to do so, to stay within this old world and not to be at peace in another. I have made playthings of those of flesh and blood who are my sole companions now, and none have ever broken past the guard I place upon myself. Would you know the truth of what you ask, Valegirl? Beg it from me, then.»
Anger welled up within her at the Grimpond’s boastful words, and she stepped to the very edge of the gray lake waters. Spray hissed warningly from out of the mist, but she ignored it.
«I was warned that you would play this game with me,” she said, her own voice dangerous now. «I have come far and have endured much grief. I have no wish to be teased now by you. Do not press me, shade. Speak only the truth. How am I to reach the pit of the Maelmord without the walkers seeing where I come?»
The Grimpond’s eyes narrowed sharply, flickering deep red as the silence between the two lengthened. «Find your own way, Brin of the Vale people,” the Grimpond hissed.
Rage exploded inside Brin, but by sheer force of will she held it in check. Wordlessly, she nodded in acquiescence, then stepped back and seated herself upon the shore, her cloak pulled close about her.
«You wait to no purpose,” the shade sneered.
But Brin did not move. She composed herself carefully, breathing in the damp air of the lake and drawing her thoughts close about her. The Grimpond stayed suspended above the waters of the lake, unmoving, its eyes turned toward her. Brin let those eyes draw her close. A serene look came over her dusky face, and the long black hair fanned back. It does not yet see what I will do! She smiled inwardly, and the thought was gone an instant after it had come.
Then softly, she began to sing. The wishsong rose into the midday with sweet and gentle words from the lips of the girl seated upon the lakeshore, to fill the air about her. Quickly, it reached out and bound the misted form of the Grimpond, weaving and twisting with its magic. So startled was the shade that it did not stir from its resting spot, but hung suspended within the web of the magic as it slowly drew tighter. Then, for the barest second, the Grimpond seemed to sense what was happening to it. Beneath its gathered robes, the lake waters boiled and hissed. But the wishsong swiftly swept all about the imprisoned form, wrapping it away as if it had become a chrysalis.
Now the Valegirl’s voice came quicker and with more certain intent. The shrouding of the first song, the gentle, womblike wrapping that had bound the Grimpond without his seeing, was gone. A prisoner now, as surely as the fly caught within the spider’s web, the shade was to be dealt with as its captor chose. Yet the Valegirl used neither force of arms nor strength of mind against this being, for she had seen that such would be useless. Memories were the weapons she called to her aid now — memories of what had once been, of what had been lost and could never be regained. All came back once more within the wishsong’s music. There was the touch of a human hand, warm and kind. There was the smell and taste of sweetness and light and the sensation of love and joy, of life and death. There were all these and others, lost to the Grimpond in its present form, barely remembered from the life long since gone.