The Sword of Shannara Trilogy (22 page)
“And his followers …?” asked Menion slowly.
“Victims of the same. They became servants to their leader, all slaves of the strange power of sorcery….” Allanon trailed off hesitantly, as if to add something but uncertain of its effect on his listeners. Thinking better of it, he continued. “The fact that these unfortunate Druids stumbled onto the very opposite of what they were seeking is in itself a lesson to Man. Perhaps with patience, they might have pieced together the missing links to the old sciences rather than uncovering the terrible power of the spirit world that fed eagerly on their unprotected minds until they were devoured. Human minds are not equipped to face the realities of nonmaterial existence on this sphere. It is too much for any mortal to bear for long.”
Again he trailed off into ominous silence. The listeners now understood the nature of the enemy they were trying to outwit. They were up against a man who was no longer a human, but the projection of some great force beyond their own comprehension, a force so powerful that Allanon feared it could affect the human mind.
“The rest you already know,” Allanon began again rather sharply. “The creature called Brona, who no longer resembled anything human, was the directing force behind both of the Race Wars. The Skull Bearers are the followers of their old master Brona, those Druids once human in form, once a part of the Council at Paranor. They cannot escape their fate any more than he can. The very forms they take are an embodiment of the evil they represent. But more important for our purposes, they represent a new age for mankind, for all the people of the four lands. While the old sciences have disappeared into our history, forgotten now as completely as the years when machines were the godsend of an easy life, the enchantment of sorcery has replaced them—a more powerful, more dangerous threat to human life than any before it. Do not doubt me, my friends. We live in the age of the sorcerer and his power threatens to consume us all!”
There was a moment of silence. A deep stillness hung oppressively in the forest night as Allanon’s final words seemed to echo back with ringing sharpness. Then Shea spoke softly.
“What is the secret of the Sword of Shannara?”
“In the First War of the Races,” Allanon replied in almost a whisper, “the power of the Druid Brona was limited. As a result, the combined might of the other races, coupled with the knowledge of the Druid Council, defeated his army of Men and drove him into hiding. He might have ceased to be and the whole incident been written off as merely another chapter in history—another war between mortals—except that he managed to unlock the secret of perpetuating his spiritual essence long after his mortal remains should have decomposed and turned to dust. Somehow he preserved his own spirit, feeding it on the power of the mystic forces he now possessed, giving it a life apart from materiality, apart from mortality. He now was able to bridge the two worlds—the world we live in and the spirit world beyond, where he summoned the black wraiths that had for centuries lain dormant, and waited for his time to strike back. As he waited, he watched the races drift apart as he knew they must in time, and the power of the Druid Council wane as their interest in the races grew lax. As with all things evil, he waited until the balance of hatred, envy, greed—the human failings common to all the races—outweighed the goodness and kindness, and then he struck. Gaining easy control of the primitive, warlike Rock Trolls of the Charnal Mountains, he reinforced their numbers with creatures of the spirit world he now served, and his army marched on the divided races.
“As you know, they crushed the Druid Council and destroyed it—all save a few who fled to safety. One of those who escaped was an aged mystic named Bremen, who had foreseen the danger and in vain attempted to warn the others. As a Druid, he was originally a historian and in that capacity had studied the First War of the Races and learned of Brona and his followers. Intrigued by what they had attempted to do, and suspicious that perhaps the mysterious Druid had acquired powers that no one had known about nor could have hoped to combat, Bremen began his own study of the mystic arts, but with greater care and respect for the possible power he felt he might unlock. After several years of this pursuit, he became convinced that Brona was indeed still existent and that the next war upon the human race would be started and eventually decided by the powers of sorcery and black magic. You can imagine the response he received to this theory—he was practically thrown from the confines of Paranor. As a result, he began to master the mystic arts on his own and so was not present when the castle at Paranor fell to the Troll army. When he learned that the Council had been taken, he knew that if he did not act, the races would be left
defenseless against the enchantment Brona had mastered, power that mortals knew nothing about. But he was faced with the problem of how to defeat a creature who could not be touched by any mortal weapon, one who had survived for over five hundred years. He went to the greatest nation of his time—the Elven people under the command of a courageous young King named Jerle Shannara—and offered his assistance. The Elven people had always respected Bremen, because they understood him better than even his fellow Druids. He had lived among them for years prior to the fall of Paranor, while studying the science of the mystic.”
“There is something I don’t understand.” Balinor spoke up suddenly. “If Bremen was a master of the mystic arts, why could he not himself challenge the power of the Warlock Lord?”
Allanon’s response was somehow evasive. “He did confront Brona in the end on the Plains of Streleheim, though it was not a battle that was visible to mortal eyes, and both disappeared. It was presumed that Bremen had defeated the Spirit King, but time has proven otherwise, and now …” He hesitated only an instant before quickly returning to his narrative, but the emphasis on the pause was not lost on any of his listeners.
“In any event, Bremen realized that what was needed was a talisman to serve as a shield against the possible return of one such as Brona at another time when there was no one familiar with the mystic arts to offer assistance to the peoples of the four lands. So he conceived the idea of the Sword, a weapon which would contain the power to defeat the Warlock Lord. Bremen forged the Sword of Shannara with the aid of his own mystic prowess, shaping it with more than the mere metal of our own world, giving it that special protective characteristic of all talismans against the unknown. The Sword was to draw its strength from the minds of the mortals for whom it acted as a shield—the power of the Sword was their own desire to remain free, to give up even their lives to preserve that freedom. This was the power which enabled Jerle Shannara to destroy the spirit-dominated Northland army then; it is the same power that must now be used to send the Warlock Lord back into the limbo world to which he belongs, to imprison him there for all eternity, to cut off entirely his passage back to this world. But as long as he has the Sword, then he has a chance to prevent its power from being used to destroy him forever, and that, my friends, is the one thing that must not be.”
“But then why is it that only a son of the House of Shannara …?” The question formed on Shea’s fumbling lips, his own mind reeling confusedly.
“That is the greatest irony of all!” exclaimed Allanon before the question was even completed. “If you have followed all that I have related about
the change of life following the Great Wars, the giving way of the old materialistic sciences to the science of the present age, the science of the mystic, then you will understand what I am about to explain—the strangest phenomenon of all. While the sciences of old operated on practical theories built around things that could be seen and touched and felt, the sorcery of our own time operates on an entirely different principle. Its power is potent only when it is believed, for it is power over the mind which can neither be touched nor seen through human senses. If the mind does not truly find some basis for belief in its existence, then it can have no real effect. The Warlock Lord realizes this, and the mind’s fear of and belief in the unknown—the worlds, the creatures, all the occurrences that cannot be understood by men’s limited senses—offer him more than enough basis upon which to practice the mystic arts. He has been relying on this premise for over five hundred years. In the same way, the Sword of Shannara cannot be an effective weapon unless the one holding it believes in his power to use it. When Bremen gave the sword to Jerle Shannara, he made the mistake of giving it directly to a king and to the house of a king—he did not give it to the people of the lands. As a result, through human misunderstanding and historical misconception, the universal belief grew that the Sword was the weapon of the Elven King alone and that only those descended of his blood could take up the Sword against the Warlock Lord. So now, unless it is held by a son of the House of Shannara, that person can never fully believe in his right to use it. The ancient tradition that only such a one can wield it will make all others doubt—and there must be no doubt, or it will not operate. Instead, it will become merely another piece of metal. Only the blood and belief of a descendant of Shannara can invoke the latent power of the great Sword.”
He concluded. The silence that followed was hollow. There was nothing left to tell the four that could be told. Allanon reconsidered briefly what he had promised himself. He had not told them everything, purposely holding back the little more that would have proved the final terror for them. He inwardly felt torn between the desire to have it all out and the gnawing realization that it would destroy any chance of success; their success was of paramount importance—only he knew the full truth of that fact. So he sat in silence, bitter in his private knowledge and angered by the self-imposed limits he had set for himself—the limits that forbade a complete revelation to those who had come to depend upon him so very heavily.
“Then only Shea can use the Sword if …” Balinor broke the silence abruptly.
“Only Shea has the birthright. Only Shea.”
It was so quiet that even the night life of the forest seemed to have stilled
its incessant chatter in sober contemplation of the grim historian’s reply. The future came down to each as a simple declaration of existence—succeed or be destroyed.
“Leave me now,” commanded Allanon suddenly. “Sleep while you can. We leave this haven at sunrise for the halls of Paranor.”
T
he morning came quickly for the small company, and the golden half-light of dawn found them preparing to begin their long journey with sleep-filled eyes. Balinor, Menion, and the Valemen waited for the appearance of Allanon and the cousins of Eventine. No one spoke, partly because each was still half asleep and had very little to recommend him in the way of good humor, and partly because each was inwardly thinking about the hazardous trip that lay ahead. Shea and Flick sat quietly on a small stone bench, not looking at each other as they considered the tale Allanon had related to them the previous night, wondering what possible chance they had of recovering the Sword of Shannara, using it against the Warlock Lord to destroy him, and still returning alive to their homeland. Shea, particularly, had passed the point where his chief emotion was fear; now he felt only a sense of numbness that dulled his mind into self-imposed surrender, a robot-like acceptance of the fact that he was being led to the proverbial slaughter. Yet in spite of this resigned attitude toward the journey to Paranor, somewhere in the back of his confused mind was the lingering belief that he could work out all of these seemingly insurmountable obstacles. He could feel it lurking there, waiting for a more opportune moment to arise and demand satisfaction. But for the moment he allowed himself to lapse dutifully into numbed acquiescence.
The Valemen were dressed in woodsman garb provided by the Dwarf people, including warm half-cloaks in which they now wrapped themselves to ward off the chill of the early morning. In addition, they carried the short hunting knives they had brought with them from the Vale, tucked in their leather belts. Their packs were necessarily compact, in accord with the Valemen’s small size. The country they would pass through offered some of the best hunting in all the Southland, and there were several small communities friendly to Allanon and the Dwarfs. But it was also the home of the Gnome people, the longtime, bitter enemies of the Dwarfs. There was some hope the little band would be able to maintain an advantage of stealth and secrecy in their travel and avoid any confrontation with Gnome hunters. Shea had carefully packed away the Elfstones in their leather
pouch, showing them to no one. Allanon had not mentioned them since he had arrived in Culhaven. Whether this was an oversight or not, Shea was not about to give up the one really potent weapon that he possessed and kept the pouch hidden within his tunic.
Menion Leah stood several yards away from the brothers, pacing idly. He wore particularly nondescript hunting clothes, loose-fitting and colored to blend with the land to make his task as tracker and huntsman as uncomplicated as possible. His shoes were soft leather, toughened by certain oils to enable him to stalk anything without being heard and still travel the toughest ground without injuring the soles of his feet. Strapped to his lean back was the great sword, sheathed now, its strong hilt glinting dully in the early light as he shifted restlessly about. Across his shoulder he carried the long ash bow and its arrows, his favorite weapon on hunting trips.