Then he remembered something else. When Grianne had first been sent into this prison by means of a powerful magic called a triagenel—and while the power of the Forbidding was still strong and undeniable—something already imprisoned within had to be sent into the Four Lands to take her place. A switch had to be made for the magic to work. So what sort of demon had Clizia released from the Forbidding to make room for him? Whatever had been released, he was in no position to do anything about it. It was all he could do to come to terms with his own situation. He was not yet reconciled to what had been done to him, but he knew enough about the danger he was in to want to settle his mind and focus on determining what he was going to do to stay alive. If nothing had begun hunting him already, it was only a matter of time.
And likely there would be more than one.
If only he knew where everything was and could orient himself. If only he knew which way to go now that he was trapped here.
He knew the landscape of the Forbidding closely mirrored his own world—and aside from an absence of any real color, the terrain would approximate what he knew of the Four Lands. Grianne, according to her entries in the Druid Histories describing her imprisonment, had been taken to a fortress that was situated somewhere in this world close to where Tyrsis would have been in his. She had been taken there to service the whims of the Straken Lord and live out her life as his slave. In the end, that hadn’t worked out so well for the demon, which she subsequently escaped and later killed. But going to that fortress might be a reasonable starting point for Drisker.
Then another thought occurred to him, this one the most troubling yet.
Hadn’t Grianne Ohmsford been sent back to the Forbidding a second time, and wasn’t she still imprisoned here as a result?
The thought was sudden and unexpected, and Drisker found himself thinking back to his initial summoning of Allanon at the Hadeshorn, when Grianne—reverted now to the Ilse Witch—had come to him instead. She had told him she still lived and was still imprisoned and had come to him using the passageways of the dead. If he wanted her help in finding a way to save the Four Lands, she would give it to him, but only if he agreed to free her from the Forbidding. It had occurred to him then that keeping his end of the bargain might mean coming into the demon prison himself—perhaps even exchanging himself for her to keep his word. But now that he was here, he could find her and perhaps they could discover a way to escape together.
He was abruptly energized by the idea. Then, just as quickly, a further thought occurred. What if Clizia had already freed the Ilse Witch? What if she had already accomplished what he had promised, and it was Grianne for whom he had been swapped?
The thought was so chilling that, for a moment, he couldn’t breathe. What if it was Clizia’s intent that she and the Ilse Witch should be allies, rulers over the Four Lands from atop a new Druid order?
But he immediately decided that this conclusion presumed a lot. In the first place, how was Clizia to know that Grianne Ohmsford was still alive? And even if she were capable of making such a determination, an alliance between them was unlikely. Two such powerful Druids would never accept each other as equals. Neither would ever trust the other.
Drisker leaned against one of the ancient trees while trying to regain his composure. It was not an easy feat to accomplish. In truth, he was still shaken to his core by the raft of possibilities. He had gone from disbelief to belief back to disbelief in minutes, and he still wasn’t sure of what to do. Nor was he sure what his betrayer might have already done while he was trapped here. He needed to find out, and he couldn’t do it standing around bemoaning his fate.
He had to start moving right away.
* * *
—
Eyes watched the Druid as he departed the patch of woods and set out toward the river that flowed south through the broad grasslands valley. There were more than one pair fixed on him, and they watched with varying degrees of interest. Some saw him as food, some as sport, and some as a puzzle. But all were thinking of finding out more. They hid within the shadows of the land in which they were trapped, all of them sad and angry and bored. But mostly they were skilled at staying alive. They hunted and they fought and they waited for opportunity of any kind.
This newcomer, this human creature, offered just such an opportunity.
One by one—and, in some cases, in pairs and packs—they began to track him.
* * *
—
Drisker walked for hours, and the look of the Forbidding never changed. It remained barren and weather-blasted and hazy gray—a monochromatic ruin of what Drisker knew from the Druid Histories to be nothing more than a dismal approximation of his own world, conjured through the use of Faerie magic thousands of years ago. There was nothing reassuring or pleasing about any of it, and it served only to remind the Druid of the grimness of his situation. Vast stretches and broad heights encircled him, all offering endless opportunities for concealment. That there were things hiding in wait, if not coming after him directly, was certain. The Druid Histories written hundreds of years ago by Grianne Ohmsford had made that clear enough.
So while he preferred not to reveal his presence to those who could detect the use of magic, he saw no way to avoid it. He needed to wrap himself in shielding to protect against attacks and search his surroundings to make sure he was not walking into a perilous situation. It soon proved a worthwhile effort. Right away, he found denizens of the Forbidding hiding close at hand—some large, some small, but all watching. He could not know what sorts of creatures he might encounter, or understand the nature of the threat they posed, but at least he could know they were there. Even from reading the entries in the Histories, he knew there would be dangers unknown to the writer.
He was going to have to be prepared for everything, because it would not be long before he was tested.
And as it happened, the testing began much more quickly than he had expected.
He was just cresting a low rise when he encountered a pack of Furies. He knew what they were instantly. Grianne had nearly lost her life to them, saving herself by assimilating into their pack and assuming their feral behavior, making them think she was one of them while nearly losing her humanity in the process. The pack was perhaps twenty strong—small in size for Furies, who frequently traveled in groups of more than a hundred. Furies were catlike creatures weighing maybe fifty pounds each, lean and rawboned beneath a light covering of hair: an obscene approximation of house pets. Their hunting behavior never varied; they always worked in packs to bring down prey. Or to kill for sport, which they did often.
His first thought was wishful thinking: Perhaps they had not sensed him. Faint hope, for their twisted cat faces looked up immediately, gleaming eyes fixing on him. Their sinewy bodies shifted at once into an attack posture, all turning in unison. Grianne had categorized them as mindless killers. You might stop one or two—more, if you were capable of summoning real magic—but you could not stop them all, because once committed to a battle they would never give up. You couldn’t run from them; they were too swift and agile. And if they reached you, there was little hope against their razor-sharp teeth and claws.