been gone almost ten hours. He rose quickly, worried now,
thinking that she should have been back long ago. It was pos-
sible that she had come in and gone out again, but not likely.
She would have woken him. He would have woken himself. He
frowned darkly, uneasily, twisted his body from side to side to
ease the kinks, and wondered what to do.
Hungry, in spite of his concern, he decided to eat some-
thing, and finished off the last of the cheese and bread. There
was a little ale in the stoppered skin, but it tasted stale and warm.
Where was Damson?
Par Ohmsford had known the risks from the beginning, the
dangers that Damson Rhee faced every time she left him and
went out into the city. If the Mole was captured, they would
make him talk. If the safe holes were compromised, she might
be, too. If Padishar was taken, there were no secrets left. He
knew the risks; he had told himself he had accepted them. But
faced for the first time since escaping from the sewers that the
worst had happened, he found he was not prepared after all. He
found that he was terrified.
Damson. If anything had happened to her .
A scuffing sound caught his attention, and he left the thought
unfinished. He started, then wheeled about, searching for the
source of the noise. It was behind him, at the top of the stairs,
at the door leading to the street.
Someone was playing with the lock.
At first he thought it must be Damson, forced for some
reason to try to enter through the back. But Damson did not
have a key. And the sound he was hearing was of a key scraping
in the lock. The fumbling continued, ending in a sharp snick as
the lock released.
Par reached down for the Sword of Shannara and strapped
it quickly across his back. Whoever was up there, it was not
Damson. He snatched up the backpack, thinking to hide any
trace of his being there. But his bootprints were everywhere,
the bed was mussed, and small crumbs of food littered the table.
Besides, there was no time. The intruder had lifted the lock from
its hasp and was opening the door.
Daylight flooded through the opening, an oblique shaft of
wan gray. Par backed hastily from the room into the tunnels.
He left the torch. He no longer needed it to find his way. The
morning’s explorations had left him with a clear vision of which
way to go, even in the near dark. Boots thudded softly on the
wooden steps, too heavy and rough to be Damson’s.
He went down the tunnel in a noiseless crouch. Whoever
had entered would know he had been there, but would not
know how long ago. They would wait for him to return, think-
ing to catch him unprepared. Or Damson. But he could wait for.
Damson somewhere close to the entrance to the old mill and
warn her before she entered. Damson would never come
through the back entrance with the lock sprung. His thoughts
raced through his mind in rapid cuccession, propelling him on
through the darkness, silent and swift. All he had to do was
escape detection, to get back through the cellar and out the
door to the street.
He could no longer hear footsteps. Good. The intruder had
stopped to view the room, was wondering who had been there,
how many of them there had been, and why they had come.
More time for Par to get away, a better chance for him to
escape.
But when he reached the cellar, he moved too quickly to-
ward the stairs leading up and stumbled into an empty wooden
crate, tripped, and fell. The rotting wood cracked and splintered
beneath him, the sound reverberating sharply through the si-
lence.
As he pulled himself back to his feet, furious, breath-
less, he could hear the sound of footsteps coming toward
him.
He broke for the stairs, no longer bothering to hide his
flight. The footsteps gave chase. Not Shadowen, he thought-
they would be silent in their coming. Federation, then. But only