Then she would deal with that boy.
That boy who claimed he was Bek.
Even thinking about him angered her. His words skipped and jumped through her mind like small unruly animals. Even while trying to focus her thinking on what lay ahead, she could not dismiss them. Or him. That boy! His image was constant and tenacious, lingering in a way that came close to causing her panic. It was ridiculous that he should affect her so strongly. She had overcome him easily enough, outsmarted him time and again, stolen away his voice and his talisman, made him her prisoner, and crushed his hopes for convincing her of who he thought he was.
And yet …
And yet she could not rid herself of his voice, his face, his presence! Working on her like iron tools on hard earth, digging and hoeing and shoveling, breaking up her resistance with their sharp edges, with their implacable certainty. How had he managed that, when no one else could? Others had sought to breach her defenses, to convince her of their rightness, to twist her thinking to suit their own. No one had come close to succeeding, not since she was very little, when the Morgawr . . .
She did not finish the thought, not wanting to travel that road again just now. The boy was no Morgawr, but he might prove to be just as dangerous. His talent for magic was raw and unskilled, but that could change quickly enough. When it did, he would be a formidable adversary. She did not need another of those.
She stopped suddenly, startled by a realization that had escaped her earlier. His magic, rough and undisciplined as it was, had affected her already. Infected her. That was why she could not rid herself of his voice, why she could not banish it. She exhaled sharply, angry all over again. How could she have been so stupid! She used her own voice in the same way, as if speaking in ordinary conversation, but all the while working on the listener’s thinking. She had let him talk to her because she had foolishly believed it made no difference what he said. She had missed the point. What he said didn’t matter; how he said it, did! She had given him an opportunity he could not possibly have missed and he had used it!
She was shaking with rage. She looked back the way she had come. She was tempted to go back and deal with him. He was too much like her for comfort. Too similar. It was disquieting. It was cause for more concern than she had been willing to give it until now.
For a long time she stood, undecided. Then she shook off her hesitation. What lay ahead was what mattered most. The boy was helpless. He was not going to cause problems before she got back. He was not going to do anything but sit and wait.
Hitching up the Sword of Shannara once more, smoothing the angry wrinkles from her pale face, she adjusted the concealing cloak and cowl and continued on into the night.
NINETEEN
In a maelstrom of jetting fire and clashing steel, Walker fled through the corridors of Castledown. He was under attack from every quarter, fire threads lashing out at him from hidden ports and crevices, creepers converging in droves. They had found him only moments before, while he crept through what seemed an empty passageway, and now they were all about him. He had kept them at bay with the Druid fire, but only barely, and the circle was tightening as he tried to fight his way clear, dodging through tunnels and into chambers, out doorways and into corridors, taking every stairway that led up, desperate to regain the surface where he might gain his freedom. He no longer sought to find the books of magic. His plans for that had long since been abandoned. Fatigue and tension had eroded his resolve. He had not slept in so long he could not remember the last time. He had eaten nothing in what seemed like weeks. He kept going out of sheer determination, out of stubbornness, and out of certainty that if he stopped, he would die.