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 Ilse Witch (Book Excerpt)
by Terry Brooks
Buy from Amazon.comPage 2 of 4
In the night, in darkness and shadows, she could do so more easily. She could
keep what she looked like to herself and conceal who she really was. She could
let them imagine her, and by doing so keep them forever deceived.
She moved through the village without challenge, encountering almost no one,
those few she did unaware of her presence as they passed. It was late, the
village mostly asleep, the ones who preferred the night busy in the ale houses
and pleasure dens, caught up in their own wants and needs, uncaring of what
transpired without. She could forgive them their weaknesses, these men and
women, but she could never accept them as equals. Long since, she had
abandoned any pretense that she believed their common origins linked them in
any meaningful way. She was a creature of fire and iron. She was born to
magic and power. It was her destiny to shape and alter the lives of others and
never to be altered by them. It was her passion to rise above the fate that
others had cast for her as a child and to visit revenge on them for daring to
do so. She would be so much more than they, and they would be forever less.
When she let them speak her name again, when she chose to speak it herself, it
would be remembered. It would not be buried in the ashes of her childhood, as
it had once been. It would not be cast aside, a fragment of her lost past. It
would soar with a hawk's smooth glide and shine with the milky brightness of
the moon. It would linger on the minds of the people of her world forever.
The Healer's house lay ahead, close by the trees of the surrounding forest.
She had flown in from the Wilderun late that afternoon, come out of her
safehold in response to the spy's message, sensing its importance, wanting to
discover for herself what secrets it held. She had left her War Shrike in the
old growth below the bluffs, its fierce head hooded and its taloned feet
hobbled. It would bolt otherwise, so wild that even her magic could not hold
it when she was absent. But as a fighting bird, it was without equal. Even
the giant Rocs were wary of it, for the Shrike fought to the death with little
thought to protecting itself. No one would see it, for she had cast a spell of
forbidding about it to keep the unwanted away. By sunrise, she would have
returned. By sunrise, she would be gone again, even given the dictates of what
she must do now.
She slipped through the door of the Healer's home on cat's feet, moving through
the central rooms to the sick bays, humming softly as she passed the attendants
on duty, turning their minds inward and eyes elsewhere as she passed so they
would not see her. The ones who kept watch outside the castaway's curtained
entry, she put to sleep. They sank into their chairs and leaned against walls
and tables, eyes going closed, breathing slowing and deepening. It was quiet
and peaceful in the Healer's home, and her song fit snugly into place. She
layered the air with her music, a tender blanket tucking in around the cautions
and uneasiness that might otherwise have been triggered. Soon, she was all
alone and free to work.
In his bay, with a light covering over his feverish body and the window
curtains drawn close to keep out the light, the castaway lay dozing on the
pallet that had been provided for him. His skin was blistered and raw, and the
mending salve the Healer had applied glistened in a damp sheen. His body was
wasted from lack of nourishment, his heart beat weakly in his chest, and his
bruised and ravaged face was skeletal, the eyelids sunken in where the eyes
themselves had been gouged out, the mouth a scarred, red wound behind cracked
lips.
The Ilse Witch studied him carefully for a time, letting her eyes tell her as
much as they could, noting the man's distinctly Elven features, the graying
hair that marked him as no longer young, and the rigid crook of fingers and
neck that screamed silently of tortures endured. She did not like the feel of
the man, he had been made to suffer purposely and used for things she did not
care to guess at. She did not like the scent he gave off or the small sounds
he made. He was living in another place and time, unable to forget what he had
suffered, and it was not pleasant.
When she touched him, ever so softly on his chest with her slim, cool fingers,
he convulsed as if struck. Quickly, she employed her magic, singing softly to
calm him, lending peace and reassurance. The arched back relaxed slowly, and
the clawed fingers released their death grip on the bed covering. A sigh
escaped the cracked lips. Relief in any form was welcome to this one, she
thought, continuing to sing, to work her way past his defenses and into his
mind.
When he was at rest again, given over to her ministrations and become her
dependent, she placed her hands upon his fevered body so that she might draw
from him his thoughts and feelings. She must unlock what lay hidden in his
mind--his experiences, his travails, his secrets. She must do so through his
senses, but primarily through his voice. He could no longer speak as ordinary
men, but she could still communicate. It required only that she find a way to
make him want to do so.
In the end, it was not all that hard. She bound him to her through her
singing, probing gently as she did so, and he began to make what small and
unintelligible sounds he could. She drew him out one grunt, one murmur, one
gasp at a time. From each sound, she gained an image of what he knew, stored
it away, and made it her own. The sounds were inhuman and rife with pain, but
she absorbed them without flinching, bathing him in a wash of compassion, of
reassurance and pity, of gentleness and the promise of healing.
Copyright © 2000 by Terry Brooks, all rights reserved. This information came directly from the official website of Terry Brooks at http://www.terrybrooks.net and is printed with their permission.
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