A Princess of Landover
Read A Princess of Landover Online
Authors: Terry Brooks
BY TERRY BROOKSS
HANNARAFirst King of Shannara
The Sword of Shannara
The Elfstones of Shannara
The Wishsong of ShannaraT
HE
H
ERITAGE OF
S
HANNARAThe Scions of Shannara
The Druid of Shannara
The Elf Queen of Shannara
The Talismans of ShannaraT
HE
V
OYAGE OF THE
J
ERLE
S
HANNARAIlse Witch
Antrax
MorgawrH
IGH
D
RUID OF
S
HANNARAJarka Ruus
Tanequil
StrakenG
ENESIS OF
S
HANNARAArmageddon’s Children
The Elves of Cintra
The Gypsy Morph
The World of ShannaraT
HE
M
AGIC
K
INGDOM OF
L
ANDOVERMagic Kingdom for Sale—Sold!
The Black Unicorn
Wizard at Large
The Tangle Box
Witches’ Brew
A Princess of LandoverT
HE
W
ORD AND
T
HE
V
OIDRunning with the Demon
A Knight of the Word
Angel Fire EastSometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life
To Shawn Speakman
,
for Web Druid services expertly rendered
and valued friendship freely given
So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day had made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing so
very
remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so
very
much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!” (when she thought about it afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the rabbit actually
took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket
, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
—Lewis Carroll,
Alice in Wonderland
Strange Creatures Like Herself
They Seek Her Here, They Seek Her There
They Seek That Princess Everywhere!
IT’S ALL HAPPENING AT THE ZOOT
he crow with the red eyes sat on the highest branch of the farthest tree at the very back of the aviary, dreaming its dark and terrible dreams. Had there been substance to those dreams, they would have scalded the earth and melted the iron bars and steel-mesh netting that held it prisoner. Had there been substance, they would have burned a hole in the very air and opened a passage to that other world, the world to which the crow belonged and desperately needed to return. But the dreams were ethereal and served only to pass the time and grow ever darker as the days wore on and the crow remained trapped.
The crow was Nightshade, Witch of the Deep Fell, and she had been absent from Landover, trapped in her current form, for more than five years.
She thought about it every day of her captivity. She sat on this branch, aloof and apart from the other birds, the ones that lacked the capacity for critical thinking, the ones that found some measure of happiness and contentment in their pitiful condition. There was nothing of either happiness or contentment for her, only the bitter memories of what had been and what might never be again. Her lost world. Her stolen life. Her true identity. Everything that had been hers before she sought to use the girl child of the King and Queen for her own purposes.
Mistaya Holiday, Princess of Landover, was the child of three worlds—and of parents who knew nothing of what she needed or what she could become, who knew only to keep her from a destiny that would have made her the witch’s own.
Even the sound of her name in the silent roil of the witch’s thoughts was like the burn of acid, and her rage and hatred fed on it anew. It never lessened, never cooled, and she was quite certain that until the child was dead or hers once more, it never would. She might be kept a prisoner in this cage for a thousand years and might never regain her true form, and still there would be no peace for her.
In her tortured mind, the witch replayed the last moments of her old life, the way it had all been, had all ended, and had suddenly become the nightmare she now endured. The child had been hers: subverted and won over, committed to her new teacher of dark magic. Then everything had gone wrong. Set against the girl by circumstances and events beyond her control, she had tried to make the child understand and had failed. Confronted by the child’s parents and allies, she had fought back with magic that had somehow been turned against her. Instead of the child being sentenced for insubordination and disobedience to banishment in a foreign world,
she
had been dispatched instead, made over into the form of her familiar.
She had tried endlessly to reason out what had happened to make things go so wrong, but even after all these years she could not be certain.
The other birds avoided the crow with the red eyes. They sensed that it was not like them, that it was a very different species, that it was dangerous and to be feared. They kept far away from it and left it alone. Now and then, one of them erred and came too close. That one served as an object lesson to the others of what might happen if they failed to be careful. It was never pretty. It was seldom even quick. The other birds tried not to make mistakes around the crow with the red eyes.
Which was the best that Nightshade, Witch of the Deep Fell, could expect if she failed to escape.