seen.”
“Any problems? ” Morgan asked.
She gave him a hard look. “I didn’t have to kill anyone, if
that’s what you mean.” She glowered at him, then settled back
and wouldn’t say another word.
Now they were both mad at him, he thought, and decided he
didn’t care.
When night came, they followed the riverbank down into
the city until they reached the docks north where Matty had se-
cured the boat. It was an older craft, a flat-bottomed skiff with
poles, oars, a mast, and a canvas sail, and was supplied with
food and weapons as Matty had promised. They climbed
aboard without saying anything and shoved off, rode the skiff
downriver to the first unoccupied cove, then beached their craft
and went immediately to sleep. At sunrise they were up again
and off. They rode the Mermidon south toward the Runne until
sunset and made camp in a wedge of rocks that opened onto
a narrow sand bar fronting a grove of ash. They ate dinner
cold, rolled into their blankets, and slept once more. Two days
had passed without anyone saying much of anything. Tempers
were frayed, and uncertainty over the direction they were tak-
ing had shut down any real effort at communication. There had
been a bonding in Tyrsis that was lacking here—perhaps be-
cause of the doubts they were feeling about one another, per-
haps because of their uneasiness over what might be waiting
for them. In Tyrsis there had been a plan—or at least the ru-
diments of one. Here there was only a vague determination to
keep hunting for Par Ohmsford until he was found. They had
known where Padishar was, and there had been a sense of hav-
ing some control over reaching him. But Par could be any-
where, and there was nothing to suggest that they were not
already too late to do him any good.
The Talismans of Shannara 271
It was with immense relief, then, that when Damson brought
out the Skree the following morning and pointed her hand
south, the copper metal gleamed bright even in the shadow of
the rocks that hemmed them about. There was a moment’s hes-
itation, and then they smiled like old friends rediscovering one
another and pushed off into the channel with fresh determina-
tion.
The tension eased after that and the sense of companionship
they had shared in rescuing Padishar returned once more. The
skiff eased its way down the channel, borne steadily south on
waters that had turned calm and smooth once more. The day
was hot and windless, and the journey was slow, but the free-
bom women and the Highlander passed the time exchanging
thoughts and dreams, working their way past the barriers they
had allowed to form between them, conversing until they were
comfortable with one another once more.
Nightfall found them deep within the Runne, the mountains
a shadowy wall in the growing dark that blocked the starlight
and left them with only a narrow corridor of sky overhead.
They camped on an island that was mostly sandy beach and
bleached driftwood encircling a stand of scrub pine. The air
stayed sultry and was thick with pungent river smells—dead
fish, mud flats, and rushes. Morgan fished, and they ate what
he caught over a small fire, drank a little of the ale Damson
carried, and watched the river flow past like a silver ribbon.
Damson used the Skree, and it glowed bright copper when
pointed south. So far, so good. They were less than a day’s
journey from where the Mermidon emptied into the Rainbow
Lake. Perhaps there they would learn something of the where-
abouts of Par.
After a time Damson and Matty stretched out on their blan-
kets to sleep while Morgan ambled down to the water’s edge
and sat thinking of other times and places. He wanted to pull
together the threads of all that had happened in an effort to
make some sense out of what was to come. He was tired of
running from an enemy he still knew almost nothing about,
and in typical fashion believed that if he considered the matter
hard enough he was bound to leam something. But the threads