In an instant, he disappeared, right from in front of Bek, vanishing as if into vapor. The boy called up his magic and cast it about wildly, searching. Nothing happened.
The shape-shifter reappeared, right where he had been an instant before. Bek gasped at the suddenness, then shook his head angrily. “It didn’t work!” Frustration colored his words. “I can’t make it do anything!”
Tails Rohk bent close, big and menacing. “Too bad for us if you can’t, isn’t it? Try again. Cast about as if you’re throwing a net! Pretend you’re draping images with cloth. It isn’t me you’re looking for-it’s my shade. Do it!”
Again he was gone, and again Bek summoned the magic and cast it out. This time he was more successful. He caught pieces of Truls Rohk moving left to right and back again, ghostly presences that hung on the midday air.
“Better.” The shape-shifter was back in front of him again. “Once more, but hold tight to a corner of the magic you’re releasing. Then draw it in, fisherboy.”
On this try, he caught all of Truls Rohk’s movements, a series of passages clearly defined, moving all around him and back again. Like shades released from the dead, they hung suspended on the air, one after the other, each moving slowly to catch up to the next, as if runners slowed by quicksand and weariness.
They worked at it steadily, and then the shape-shifter changed his look to match the boy’s, and suddenly Bek was casting for his own images, seeing himself replicated over and over across the meadow. Back and forth, this way and that, from one end to the other and into the trees, Truls Rohk cast his own image and the boy’s until the meadow was filled with their shadows and the trail was hopelessly tangled.
“Let her try to sort that out,” Truls Rohk grunted as he led the boy through the drifting images in a zigzag fashion, making for a set of mountains east. “We’ll do it again a little farther on, somewhere close to water.”
They ran on, not so quickly and furiously as before, the shape-shifter setting a more reasonable pace, one the boy was able to keep up with more easily. They did not speak, but concentrated on their effort, on putting as much distance between themselves and their pursuer as possible, on conserving their strength. Twice more they stopped to produce a confusing set of images, a tangled trail, crossing a deep stream once, doubling back twice at right angles, choosing difficult, rocky terrain for their passage.
It was nearing nightfall when they stopped finally to rest and eat, the light fading rapidly west, the forestland already cloaked in lengthening shadows. Night birds lifted out of the growing twilight, dark winged shapes against the sky. Bek watched them fly away and wished he had their wings. He carried no food or water, but Truls Rohk had come bearing both, stolen from Black Moclips on leaving, the shape-shifter prepared as always.
“Though I did not think it would come to this,” he admitted grimly, handing over his water skin for the boy to drink.
Bek was exhausted. He had not faltered, but his muscles were drained and his body aching. He was used to hard treks and long hikes, but not to running for so long. Life aboard the Jerle Shannara had helped prepare him, but even so his endurance had its limits and did not begin to approach that of Truls Rohk.
“Will she give up now?” he asked hopefully, passing back the water skin and gnawing hungrily on the dried beef the other passed him in return. “Will she lose interest and go back for Walker?”
The shape-shifter laughed softly, wrapped in his robes and hood, his expression and thoughts hidden away. “I don’t think so. She isn’t like that. She doesn’t give up. She’ll find another way to track us. She’ll keep coming.”
Bek sighed in resignation. “I’ll have to face her again sooner or later. There isn’t any help for it.” The Sword of Shannara lay at his side, and he glanced down at it. His expectations for its use against his sister seemed foolish and desperate.