went back to waiting for Matty Roh.
Nightfall came, and she still hadn’t returned. Shadows blot-
ted away the light, and the sky was darkening quickly and fill-
ing with stars. West, beyond where they could see, the storm
front continued to approach, and within the walls of the city
the air began to cool with its coming.
Damson rose. “I can’t wait any longer, Highlander. I have to
go now if I am to find the Mole and still have time to bring
the free-born into the city.” She pulled on her cloak and tied it
about her. “Wait here for Matty. When she comes, find out
what you can that will help us.”
“When she comes,” Morgan repeated. “Assuming she does.”
She reached down to touch him lightly on the shoulder.
“Whatever happens, I will come back for you as quickly as I
He nodded. “Good luck. Damson. Be careful.”
She smiled and disappeared across the darkening courtyard
into the shadows. The sound of her footsteps echoed on the
stone and faded away into silence.
Morgan sat alone in the gloom and listened to the sounds of
the city slowly quiet and die. Overhead, clouds moved across
the stars and began to screen them away. The night darkened,
and a strange hush settled over the bluff. Padishar, he thought,
hang on, we’re coming. Somehow,’we’re coming.
He tried sleeping and could not. He tried thinking of some-
thing he could do, but everything involved going out from his
hiding place, and if he did that he might not get back again.
He would have to wait. Rescue plans crowded his mind, but
they were as ephemeral as smoke, based on speculation, not on
fact, and useless. He wished he had brought the Sword of Leah
so that he would not feel so defenseless. He wished he had
made better choices in his efforts to aid his friends. He wished
himself into a dark comer and was forced to stop wishing for
fear that he would find himself paralyzed by regrets.
It was nearing midnight when he heard the scrape of boots
on the stone of the courtyard and looked up from his light doze
to see Matty Roh materialize in the fading starlight. He jerked
upright, and she hushed him to silence. She crossed to where
he waited and sat next to him, breathing heavily.
The Talismans of Shannara 247
“I ran the last mile,” she said. “I was afraid you would be
gone.”
“No.” He waited. “Are you all right? ”
She looked at him, and her eyes were haunted. “Damson? ”
“Gone in search of the Mole, then off to bring Chandos and
the rest through the tunnels. She’ll meet us back here by
dawn.”
The smile she gave was anxious and searching. “I’m glad
you’re here.”
He smiled back, but the smile seemed wrong, and he let it
drop. “What happened, Matty? ”
“I found him.”
Morgan took a deep breath. ‘Tell me,” he urged softly, sens-
ing she should not be rushed. There was a sheen of sweat on
her skin, and that strange look in her eyes.
She bent so that their shoulders touched. Her boyish, deli-
cate features were taut, and there was an urgency that radiated
as surely as light. “I began at the ale houses, looking and lis-
tening. I made some easy friends, soldiers, a junior officer. I
got what I could from them and kept moving. Padishar’s name
was mentioned, but just in passing, in connection with the ex-
ecution. Night came, and I still hadn’t learned where they were
keeping him.”
She swallowed, reached for the water tin, scooped out a cup,
and drank deeply. He could feel the strength in her slim body
as it moved against his own.
She turned back. “I was certain they were keeping him
somewhere people would avoid. The watchtower was a ruse,
so where else would he be? There are prisons, but word would
leak from there. It had to be someplace else, a place no one
would want to go.”
Morgan paled. “The Pit.”.
She nodded. “Yes.” She kept her eyes fixed on him. “I went
into the People’s Park and found the Gatehouse heavily