Aphasia Wye is a character in the High Druid of Shannara trilogy. He was an assassin and an ally of the mutinous Druid Shadea a'Ru.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Aphasia was a street child of unknown origins. At some point early on, he had been badly disfigured and so severely mistreated that the damage done to his appearance was nowhere near what was done to his psyche.
Shadea met Aphasia in the city of Dechtera, during the final year of her service with the Federation army. She had been tasked with finding a deserter from the army and bringing him back.
Aphasia, who was living at the edge of the squalid hovels encircling the city, had found the deserter first and killed him. When Shadea found out what he had done to the deserter, she didn't ask for an explanation, nor did she express approval or disapproval. She merely asked for a piece of the man's body as proof that he was dead.
Shadea believed that Aphasia felt a connection to her because of their common past as orphans and outcasts who had to survive on their own. She also surmised that he was probably impressed by the way she had handled their first encounter. She thought that his penchant for mutilating and eviscerating his victims was a reflection of his own lack of self-esteem.
Later Shadea learned that Aphasia Wye was a weapon for those who needed one and could afford to pay. Those who needed him found him through work of mouth spread on the streets, and he came to them when he chose; they were never allowed to find him. He was an assassin, though he wasn't calling himself one yet.
After Shadea had been drugged and violated by a handful of Federation soldiers, she fled Dechtera and the Southland for the protective isolation of Grimpen Ward. She had been there not two months when Aphasia Wye appeared. He had followed her to see what she was going to do, and wanted to share in the violence he knew she was certain to involve herself in. Although she did not bring him to Paranor when she traveled there with Iridia Eleri to join the Druid Order, she called for him once she was well-established enough that his association with her would not be a liability. Although Iridia didn't give Aphasia a second glance, the other members of the mutinous Druid faction—Terek Molt, Pyson Wence, and Traunt Rowan—instinctively disliked and mistrusted Wye.
Hunt for Pen Ohmsford[]
Shadea gave Aphasia the Stiehl and ordered him to track down and kill Penderrin Ohmsford. The assassin tracked and harried Pen all the way to the ruins of Stridegate, but he was killed by the tanequil before he could end Pen's life.
Physical Description[]
Aphasia is described as being repulsive to look upon, with crooked limbs and a deformed, spiderlike physique that results in Aphasia preferring to move by scrabbling about on all fours as opposed to walking. Despite the damage done to him both internally and externally, Shadea found him strangely attractive, as the damage was the proof of his resilience and ability to survive. He spoke in short, halting sentences, with a voice the sound of "crushed glass and dry leaves, intense and tinged with bitterness."