Ilse Witch by Terry Brooks Read Free Book Online Page A

section of the granite wall, palm flat and fingers spread, and lowered his head in concentration. All the lore of all the Druids since the beginning of their order belonged now to him, given when he recovered lost Paranor and became a Druid himself those many years ago. He brought a small part of it to bear, recalling the Druid Histories from their concealment. Blue light emanated from his fingertips and spread through the stone beneath like veins through flesh.
    A moment later, the wall disappeared, and the books of his order lay revealed, shelved in long rows and in numbered sequence, their covers bound in leather and etched in gold.
    He spent a long time with the books that night, reading through many of them in his search for a key to the language on the map. When he found it, he was surprised and confounded. It was a derivation of a language spoken in the Old World, before the Great Wars, a language that had been dead for two thousand years. It was a language of symbols rather than of words. How, Walker wondered, would an Elf from his era have learned such a language? Why would he have used it to draw the map?
    The answers to his questions, once he thought them through, were disturbing.
    He worked on the translation almost until dawn, being careful not to misinterpret or assume. The more he deciphered, the more excited he became. The map was a key to a magic of such worth, of such power, that it left him breathless. He could barely manage to sit still as he imagined the possibilities. For the first time in years he saw a way in which he could secure what had been denied him for so long—a Druid Council, a body independent of all nations, working to unlock the secrets of life’s most difficult and challengingproblems and to improve the lives of all the peoples of the Four Lands.
    That dream had eluded him for thirty years, ever since he had come awake from the Druid Sleep and gone out into the world to fulfill the promise he had made to himself when he had become what he was. What he had envisioned was a council of delegates from each of the lands and races, from each of the governments and provinces, all dedicated to study, learning, and discovery. But from the very beginning there had been resistance—not just from quarters where resistance might be expected, but from everywhere. Even from the Elves, and especially from Allardon Elessedil and his mother before him. No one wanted to give Walker the autonomy he believed necessary. No one wanted anyone else to gain an advantage. Everyone was cautious and suspicious and fearful of what a strong Druid Council might mean to an already precarious balance of power. No one wanted to take the kind of chance that the Druid was asking of them.
    Walker sighed. Their demands were ridiculous and unacceptable. If the nations and the peoples were unwilling to let go of their delegates, to give up control over them so that they could dedicate themselves to the Druid life, the whole exercise was pointless. He had been unable to convince anyone that what he was doing would, given enough time, benefit them all. Druids, they believed, were not to be trusted. Druids, they believed, would visit problems on them they could do without. History demonstrated that Druids had been responsible for every war fought since the time of the First Council at Paranor. It was their own magic, the magic they had wielded in such secrecy, that had finally destroyed them. This was not an experience anyone wanted to repeat. The magic belonged to everyone now. It was a new age, with new rules. Control over the Druids, should they be permitted to re-form, was necessary. Nothing less would suffice.
    In the end, the effort fell apart, and Walker was made outcast everywhere. Petty feuds, selfish interests, andshort-sighted personalities stymied him completely. He was left enraged and stunned. He had counted heavily on the Elves to lead the way, and the Elves had spurned him as surely as the others. After the death