The First King of Shannara

Then he began to rebuild himself. He drew from the life of the garden to accomplish this. He drew from the creatures that had once been human but were no longer so. He found the essence of what they were, the core of what the Black Elfstone’s magic had made of them, and he let it blossom within himself. He became as they were, as dark and lost, as ravaged and barren, a replica of their madness and their evil. He became like them, save for the fact that he retained the basic substance of his form so that he might walk among them. He was one step removed from their fate, so close there was no difference beyond the taking of that step.

The Elves watching could see him change. They could see his tall, slightly stooped form shrink and curl. They could see his gangly arms and legs turn gnarled and bent. They could feel the foulness creep over him and into him until there was nothing else. They could smell the decay. They could taste the ruin. He was anathema to anything good, to anything human, and even Jerle Shannara, steeled as he was to face what his friend was about to do, shrank from him.

Madness buzzed within Tay Trefenwyd’s head, full-blown and obsessive. He reeked of the crippling effects of the garden’s dark magic, of the ruin brought to those who infused it with their lives, who had made it their home. For an instant Tay thought he understood the magic, how it had derived from misguided use of the Black Elfstone, but the proximity of his understanding threatened the last vestige of his sanity, the small kernel of what held him to his purpose, and he was forced to back away.

He went into the garden now, a fellow to the creatures it had absorbed. He went boldly, for no other approach made sense. He went as one of them, still tending to the duties they had abandoned on changing form, still inhabiting the world they had left behind.

He slid between the slender trees and brushed up against the flaccid vines, a serpent come to a serpent’s refuge. He was as poisonous as they, and nothing of what they had become was any worse than what reflected in him. He slipped into the shadowed depths, seeking their comfort, easing sinuously into their embrace, soulless.

The garden and the creatures that fed it reacted as he had hoped.

They welcomed him. They embraced him as one of their own, recognizable and familiar. He immersed himself in their foulness, in their decay, letting the tendrils of their collective thought worm into his mind so that they might see his intent. He was their keeper, they saw. He was a tender of the garden. He was come to bring them something, a change that would inspire new growth, that would satisfy some unspoken need. He was come to give them release.

He went deep into the garden, so deep that he lost himself completely in what he had become. All else faded and would not be remembered if he did not come out. He twisted down into a knot that squeezed away his life in small, scarlet drops. He was all madness and itch, a ravaged specter without a trace of his former identity. He was lost to everything he had been.

But he was driven, too, by the unalterable and compelling sense of purpose to which he had given himself over. He had come for the Black Elfstone, and he was determined, even in his madness, that he would have it. With single-mindedness and inexorable need, he approached it. The lines of power brushed against him and slid away. The vines shuddered, but with appreciation rather than rage. The life of the garden let him bend to the Elfstone, let him take it in his hands, let him lift it to his breast. He had come to care for the Stone, they saw. He had come to draw new magic from it, magic they would share, that would feed and satisfy anew their hunger.

For this was the guise that Tay Trefenwyd had assumed. The creatures that composed the garden could no longer invoke the power that had subverted them, could no longer feed upon it, but were locked in what it had made of them, trapped within the vines and trees and flowers of this rectangular patch of earth, deep within the fortress that had once been their home, rooted in place forever. They guarded the stone as they would a lock to their shackles, waiting for the time when a key would be brought to release them. Tay was the bearer of that key. Tay was the chance and the hope and the promise their madness allowed.

So he went, step by step, back through the garden, bearing in his hands — or what passed for hands — the Black Elfstone. Lines of power trailed after him, the webbing of the garden’s power, played out to give him room, its tendrils releasing so that he might proceed. They snapped softly with his passing, and he could feel the garden shudder with the pain. But the pain fed back into him, the feeling delicious. Pain gave promise of agony, agony of transformation. Dark intent rode his footsteps, riddled his heart, and spurred him on through the shadows. A new power worked on his ravaged form, a tentative probe, like the touching of silken fingers against skin. It was the dormant magic of the Black Elfstone stirring to life, anxious for a new release, waking to give promise of what might be. It caressed Tay Trefenwyd as a lover. It stroked his ruined form and filled him with joy. He could have its power for his own, it whispered. He could command it as he wished, and it would give him anything.