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.Slowly he pulled away from her, straightening.Blood coated her hands and arms where she had heldhim.A faint, ironical smile flickered on his lips. The Wraiths think that I am the one they need fear-that I amthe one who can destroy them. He shook his head slowly. They are wrong.You are the power, Brin.You are the one that.nothing can stand against.One hand fastened on her arm in a grip of iron. Hear me well.Your father mistrusts the Elven magic; hefears what it can do.I tell you now that he has reason to mistrust it, Valegirl.The magic can be a thing oflight or a thing of dark for the one who possesses it.It seems a toy, perhaps, but it has never been that.Be wary of its power.It is power like nothing I have ever seen.Keep it your own.Use it well, and it willsee you safely through to the end of your quest.Use it well, and it will see the Ildatch destroyed! Allanon, I cannot go on without you! she cried softly, shaking her head in despair. You can and you must.As with your father.there is no one else. His dark face lowered.She nodded dumbly, barely hearing him, lost in the jumble of emotions that raged within her as shefought back against the inevitability of what was happening. The age passes, Allanon whispered and the black eyes glistened. So must the Druids pass with it.His hand lifted to fall gently on hers. But the trust I carry for them must not pass, Valegirl.It must remainwith those who live.That trust I give now to you.Bend close.Brin Ohmsford leaned forward until her face was directly before his.Slowly, painfully, the Druid slippedone hand within the shredded robes to his chest, then brought it forth again, the fingers dipped into hisown blood.Gently he touched her forehead.Holding the fingers to her flesh, warm with his lifeblood, hespoke softly in a language she had never heard.Something of his touch and of the words seemed to seepinto her, filling her with a rush of exhilaration that swept across her vision in a surge of blinding color andGenerated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlthen was gone.[[pg 271 picture]] What.have you done to me? she asked him haltingly.But the Druid did not answer. Help me to my feet, he commanded her.She stared at him. You cannot walk, Allanon! You are too badly hurt!A strange, unfamiliar gentleness filled the dark eyes. Help me to my feet, Brin.I will not have to walkfar.Reluctantly she wrapped her arms about him and eased him from the ground.Blood soaked the grassesupon which he had knelt and the mass of ashes that had been the Jachyra. Oh, Allanon! Brin was crying freely now. Walk me to the river s edge, he whispered.Slowly, unsteadily, they stumbled across the empty glen to where the Chard Rush churned swiftlyeastward within its grass-covered banks.The sun still shone a brilliant gold, warm and friendly as itbrightened the autumn day.It was a day of life, not of death, and Brin cried within that it could notbecome so for Allanon.They reached the bank of the river.Gently the Valegirl let the Druid settle once more into a kneelingposition, his dark head lowered against the sunlight. When your quest is done, Brin, he said to her,  you will find me here. His face lifted to hers. Nowstand away.Stricken, she stepped slowly back from him.Tears ran down her face, and her hands made pleadingmotions to the slouched form.Allanon stared back at her for a long moment, then turned away.One blood-streaked arm lifted towardthe waters of the Chard Rush, stretching out above them.The river went still instantly, its surface as calmand placid as that of a sheltered pond.A strange, hollow silence descended over everything.A moment later the center of the still water began to churn violently and from the depths of the river rosethe cries that had come from the waters of the Hadeshorn-high and piercing.They sounded for but aninstant, and then all was still once more.On the river s edge, Allanon s hand dropped to his side and his head bowed.Then the spectral figure of Bremen rose from the Chard Rush.Gray and nearly transparent against theafternoon light, the shade rose to stand upon the river s waters, ragged and bent with age. Father, Brin heard Allanon call softly.The shade came forward, gliding motionlessly on the still surface of the river.It came to where the Druidknelt.There it bent slowly downward and gathered the stricken form in its arms.Without turning, itGenerated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlmoved back across the water, Allanon cradled close.It stopped again at the center of the Chard Rush,and beneath it the waters boiled fiercely, hissing and steaming.Then it sank slowly back into the river,and the last of the Druids was carried from sight.The Chard Rush was still an instant longer, and then themagic was ended and it began to churn eastward once again. Allanon! Brin Ohmsford cried.Alone on the riverbank she stared out across the swift-flowing waters and waited for the reply thatwould never come.26After capturing Jair at the fall of the Dwarf fortress of Capaal, the Mwellret Stythys marched him norththrough the wilderness of the Anar.Following the twists and turns of the Silver River as it wovethreadlike through trees and brush, over cliffs, and across ravines, they passed deep into the forestlandand the darkness that lay close about.All the while they traveled, the Valeman was kept gagged andleashed-like an animal.Only at mealtimes was he freed of his bonds so that he might eat, and the coldreptilian eyes of the Mwellret were always upon him.Gray, rain-filled hours slipped away with agonizingslowness as the march wore on, and all that had been of the Valeman s life, his friends and companions,and his hopes and promises seemed to slip away with them.The woods were dank and fetid, infused bythe poisoned waters of the Silver River with rot and choked by dying brush and trees clustered so thicklythat the whole of the sky was screened away by their tangle.Only the river gave them any sense ofdirection as it flowed sluggishly past, blackened and fouled.Others passed north in those days as well, bound for the deep Anar.On the wide road that ran parallelto the Silver River, which the Mwellret cautiously avoided, caravans of Gnome soldiers and theirprisoners trekked in steady procession, mired in mud and laden with the pillage of an invading army.Theprisoners were bound and chained-men who had fought as defenders at Capaal.They stumbled past inlong lines, herded like cattle, Dwarves, Elves, and Bordermen, haggard, beaten, and stripped of hope.Jair looked down on them through the trees above the roadway over which they traveled and there weretears in his eyes.Armies of Gnomes from Graymark also traveled the road, southbound in great, unruly masses as theyhastened to join those tribes already advancing into the lands of the Dwarf people.Thousands came, grimand frightening, their hard yellow faces twisted with jeers as they called to the hapless prisoners thatmarched past them.Mord Wraiths came, too, though no more than a handful, dark and shadowed thingsthat walked alone and were avoided by all.The weather turned worse as the journey wore on.Skies turned black with thunderclouds and the rainbegan to fall in steady sheets [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]