It was a vision of paradise. Bek Ohmsford stood in the center of it and marveled. The gardens weren’t real; they couldn’t be. They were only dreamed. Yet in his sleep, he found them as real as the flesh of his own body.
« Welcome, Bek Ohmsford,” a soft voice whispered from behind him.
He turned and found an old man staring at him, an ancient wearing a white robe and carrying a long, bleached wooden staff. White hair tumbled from his head to his shoulders and from chin to chest. His face was deeply lined and careworn in a way that suggested that he had been waging a long, hard fight. But his blue eyes were the eyes of a child, bright and interested and filled with expectation.
« This is my home,” the old man said, a smile deepening the wrinkles of his face.
Bek looked around, confused. He was asleep, he was dreaming. But he felt as if he were awake. Was he?
« You have never been here,” the old man continued, as if reading his mind. «But we have met before, a long time ago. Do you remember?»
Bek nodded slowly, realization dawning. «You are the King of the Silver River.»
The old man nodded. «I am the last of my kind, the last of the Word’s children. I am keeper of these gardens, guardian of the Silver River, and watcher over the Races. I am also friend to the Ohmsfords. Do you remember when I helped you?»
Bek did. He had been only a boy, dispatched on a quest he had barely understood to a land no one had ever visited before. He was called Bek Rowe then, and he did not yet know of his Ohmsford heritage. While his companions slept, the King of the Silver River had come to him to give him glimpses of the truth about himself and his sister, who was then the Ilse Witch and not yet Ard Rhys of the Third Druid Order. It was the beginning of a journey of discovery that would change the lives of brother and sister forever.
That had been a long time ago, in a different life.
« I have come to help you again,” the old man said. «I do so because I promised your son that I would, although I am late in keeping that promise.»
« Pen?» Bek asked in surprise.
« Penderrin, who has gone to find the Ard Rhys and bring her back to us. Penderrin, who is beyond our reach now.» The seamed face dipped momentarily into shadow. «Walk with me.»
Bek fell into step beside him, thinking again that what was happening wasn’t real, that it was only a dream come to him in his sleep, but knowing instinctively that it was important nevertheless. He was being given a vision, a fever dream. In this vision, he might be shown truths that would help him find his son.
« Why is Pen beyond our reach?» he asked, impatient with waiting for the other to speak.
The aged head lifted slightly, one hand gesturing in a quick, dismissive motion. «It only matters that he is. It only matters that he must be. I would have told you sooner. I would have come to you. I promised him I would, weeks ago, when I first appeared to him in the Black Oaks, while he was fleeing from the Druids. He relied on me to tell you, to warn you of the danger. But I could not risk it. Had I told you, you would have gone in search of him. You would have promised me not to, but you would have gone anyway. Had you found him and rescued him, everything that must happen in its own time would have failed to happen at all.»
Bek shook his head. «Are you saying you deliberately stopped me from helping Pen by not telling me what was happening to him?»
« I am saying that I stopped you fromthinking you were helping him when in truth you would have been doing the opposite.»
« I don’t understand. Why are you telling me this now, since you chose not to before?»
The childlike eyes fixed on him. «Because now your help is needed. But it is needed in an entirely different way from before. And it will not be so easy to give.»
They walked on, not speaking. Bek, floating within his vision, dreaming through his sleep, was a disembodied presence with thoughts and emotions, but a lack of substance. It left him feeling oddly removed from what was happening, even while participating. He experienced a need to grasp on to something hard and strong, something real and true. But the words of the King of the Silver River were all he had.
« This is what has happened, Bek Ohmsford,” the old man said finally. «Druids within the order have conspired against the Ard Rhys. They found a way to banish her to a place from which she cannot return without help. Your son has gone to find her. He was asked to do so by me because I knew he was the only one who could make the journey and return. He did not think himself equal to the task, but I convinced him otherwise, and now he has convinced himself. He has crossed a barrier that no other may cross to reach the Ard Rhys. When he finds her, he will bring her back through that barrier, and they must both face their destinies.»
He paused, looking over at Bek. The look seemed intended both to measure and to reassure. «Your son and your sister are inside the Forbidding.»
Bek turned sharply toward the old man, but the heavy staff struck the earth hard enough that he could feel the blow through his feet. «Don’t speak. Just listen. Shadea a’Ru and her minions believe they have orchestrated the imprisonment of the Ard Rhys through their own cleverness and skill, but they are mistaken. They have been tricked by one of the demons that dwell within the Forbidding. That demon is a warlock, a sorcerer of great power. Its goal was to exchange the Ard Rhys for another demon, bringing her into the Forbidding in order to free one of its own to come into this world. That exchange has taken place. The demon set free now seeks to destroy the Forbidding so that all those imprisoned since the time of Faerie will be freed. The demon must be stopped or the Four Lands are lost. You must stop it.»
Bek shook his head. The charge weighed on him like a set of chains. «How?»
The old man slowed and turned to face him. The childlike eyes were kind and reassuring. «1 did not come to you to tell you of your son or warn you of your own danger before this because Penderrin alone was needed to cross into the Forbidding, and you would have stopped him. Penderrin knows that he must find and rescue his aunt. He has the means and the will to accomplish this. I think he will succeed. But he does not know that when the Ard Rhys was sent into the Forbidding, a demon was sent into our world. He only knows that he must use the talisman he has been given to rescue your sister and bring her out again. He believes that is the extent of what is required of him. This was my decision, too. Telling him the rest would have crushed him.»
He turned and began walking again, his steps careful and measured. Bek stayed at his side, waiting impatiently to hear more. All around them, breezes rippled the petals of the flowers and gave the impression that they walked upon the surface of a multihued sea.
« The talisman Pen carries is called a darkwand,” the old man said. «Penderrin has already used it to cross into the Forbidding. Once he finds the Ard Rhys, he will use it to cross back again.» He paused. «But there is one thing more he must do. What has been done must be undone—not in part, but in whole. In order for matters to be put right, everything that the combined magic of the demons and the Druids has brought to pass must be put back. Therefore, not only must the Ard Rhys be returned to this world, but the demon must be put back inside the Forbidding. The darkwand possesses the magic to do this, but only Pen has the power to wield it. He must find the demon and use the darkwand against it.»