Read Online Bearers of the Black Staff: Legends of Shannara by Terry Brooks - Free Book Online Page B

he’s right?” he asked the council leader, lifting his voice so that everyone could hear it. “What if Sider Ament speaks the truth?”
    “Careful, boy,” Skeal Eile said quickly. “Your words verge on blasphemy. You risk your salvation as a Child of the Hawk.”
    Again the voices rose to shouts, sprinkled now with epithets that were clearly audible. Pogue Kray rose yet again, and yet again slammed his fist on the table.
    The crowd quieted, but the dark looks remained.
    “If you would speak, do so one at a time!” Pogue Kray rumbled blackly, his eyes sweeping the assemblage. “And do so with some care.”
    “I would speak,” a voice from the very back of the room declared, a voice that caused Panterra to turn at once.
    Aislinne Kray stepped out of the crowd at the back of the room and made her way forward. She was a tall, striking woman with long blond hair gone almost white, finely chiseled features that made her appear much younger than she was, and a determined walk that brooked no interference. Those in her way stepped back quickly, and voices went silent once more.
    When she reached the front of the room, she turned slightly so that she was addressing everyone. “I am ashamed for you,” she said quietly but firmly. “Ashamed and disappointed. What kind of people would attack a boy and a girl like this? I stand among you and hear you speak words like
heretic
and
demon-spawn.
I hear you suggest that they be cast out if they refuse to recant. A boy and a girl you have known allyour lives. A boy and a girl who have proven themselves among the best of our Trackers, who have time and again done service to this village and its people by carrying out their duties with skill and dedication. Never once have their actions been questioned. Never once have they done anything to earn your scorn.”
    She paused, looking directly at Skeal Eile. “But now, for doing nothing more than bringing before you a message that could have significance for us all—and for keeping a promise made to a man who saved their lives—you would cast all that aside? You would declare them villains and worse?”
    “Enough, wife,” Pogue Kray interrupted wearily. “We take your point. But you must consider ours. This message casts doubt on everything we have held as truth for five centuries. We cannot accept that lightly.”
    “Nor do I say you should,
husband
,” Aislinne replied pointedly. “Incidentally, I am a member of this council, too. It would be reasonable for you to give me notice of these meetings.”
    “You were fifteen miles hence, in Woodstone Glen.” But Pogue Kray looked uncomfortable.
    “Too far for someone to come fetch me, I guess.” She was looking at Skeal Eile again. “But someone did fetch me, so here I am, and now I will be heard. Seraphic, you seem threatened by what this boy has to say. Can that be so? Are his words too dangerous to hear?”
    “His words directly contradict the teachings of our sect,” the other man replied, his voice gone smooth and pleasant once more. “We know our teachings to be truth. His words, therefore, must be lies.”
    “There is no objective scale by which to measure truth, Skeal Eile, when that truth is not written down. What we have are teachings passed by word of mouth over five centuries. There is room for error.”
    The muttering resumed suddenly, a low and sullen murmur, and Aislinne Kray wheeled on the crowd. “Are you thinking that I’m a heretic, too? Is anyone who questions the teachings of Skeal Eile automatically a heretic? Must we hew to the doctrine of the sect without question, or are we allowed to think for ourselves? Those the Hawk brought into this valley were people smart enough and strong enough to think for themselves or they would not have gotten here. Are we, their descendants, expected to do differently?”
    The voices died away. The silence was huge. “No one questions others’ right to think for themselves, Aislinne Kray,” Skeal Eile said