considered what he knew.
The list of betrayals was a long one. Someone had informed
the Federation when Padishar had taken them into Tyrsis to re-
cover the Sword of Shannara. Someone had found out what they
were going to do and gotten word to the Federation watch com-
mander ahead of their arrival. One of your own, the watch com-
mander had told Padishar. Then someone had revealed the
location of the Jut to the army that now besieged it- again,
someone who knew where it could be found and how to find
it.
He frowned. The betrayals had actually begun before that,
though. If you accepted the premise-and he was now prepared
to-that someone had sent the Gnawl to track them in the
Wolfsktaag and had gotten word to the Shadowen on Toner Ridge
where the Spider Gnomes could snatch Par, why then, the be-
trayals went all the way back to Culhaven.
So had someone been tracking them all the way from Cul-
haven?
He discarded the possibility immediately. No one could have
managed such a feat.
But there was more to the puzzle. There was the sighting of
Hirehone in Tyrsis and his subsequent murder in the Parma Key.
And there was the killing of the lift watch with the lifts still
drawn up. What did those events have to do with anything?
He let all the pieces sift through his mind for a few minutes,
waiting to see if he would discover something he had missed.
Night birds called out from below in the darkness of the Parma
Key, and the wind blew gently across his face, warm and fra-
grant. When nothing further occurred, he took each piece in
turn and tried to fit it to the puzzle, working to see if a recog-
nizable picture would emerge. The minutes paraded past him
silently. The pieces refused to fit.
He was missing something.
He rubbed his hands together briskly. He would try it another
way. He would eliminate what didn’t work and see what was
left. He took a steadying breath and relaxed.
No one could have followed them-not for all that time. So
it must be someone among them. One of them. But if that some-
one were responsible for the Gnawl and the Shadowen as well
as everything that had happened since their arrival at the outlaw
camp, then didn’t it have to be one of the members of the orig-
inal company? Par, Coil, Steff, Teel, or himself? He went back
to Teel momentarily, for he knew less of her than of any of them.
He could not bring himself to believe it was either of the Vale-
men or Steff. But why was Teel any better as a candidate? Hadn’t
she suffered at least as much as Steff?
Besides, what did Hirehone have to do with any of this? Why
were the men of the lift watch killed?
He caught himself. They were killed so that someone could
either get in or get out of the outlaw camp undetected. It made
sense. But the lifts were drawn up. They had to have been killed
after bringing someone into the camp-killed perhaps to hide
that someone’s identity.
He wrestled with the possibilities. It all kept coming back to
Hirehone. Hirehone was the key. What if it had been Hirehone
he had seen in Tyrsis? What if Hirehone had indeed betrayed
them to the Federation? But Hirehone had never returned to
the Jut after leaving. So how could he have killed the watch?
And why would he be killed after doing so in any case? And
by whom? Could there be more than one traitor involved-
Hirehone and someone else?
Something clicked into place.
Morgan Leah jerked forward in recognition. Who was the
enemy here-the real enemy? Not the Federation. The real en-
emy was the Shadowen. Wasn’t that what Allanon’s shade had
told them? Wasn’t that what they had been warned against? And
the Shadowen could take the form and body and speech of any-
one. Some of them could, at least-the most dangerous. Cogline
had said so.
Morgan felt his pulse quicken and his face flush with excite-
ment. They weren’t dealing with a human being in this matter.
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