The First King of Shannara

Carefully, Tay freed himself. “I’ll be all right,” he said. “Just wait here.”


He went down the slope, picking his way carefully on the smooth, loose rock, feeling long tremors rumble through the mountain as the destruction of the Chew Magna continued.

He glanced upward along the cliff face to the sky, taking in the expanse of the crater’s walls and its still, captured lake, the mountain peaks, and the fading sun. He allowed his thoughts to drift. He thought of Bremen and Risca, far away now in some other part of the Four Lands, waging their own fight. He imaged how it must be for them. He thought about his family and his home in Arborlon, his parents and Kira, his brother and wife and children, his friends of old, the places he had lived. He thought of doomed Paranor and the Druids. He took the measure of things past and present in a few brief moments, scattered his musings out before him, swept them up again, and put them away for good.

He stopped when he was only a dozen yards from the Skull Bearers. They had risen from their crouch and were watching him with baleful red eyes, their faces hidden within the darkness of their hooded cloaks. He lacked the magic necessary to stand against them, he knew. He had used himself up in the Chew Magna, and he was sick and worn. He accepted this calmly. The quest for the Black Elfstone was finished. All that remained was to see the Stone safely returned to Arborlon. Those with him must be given the chance to complete their journey home. He must see to it. Where once he would have been enough to protect them all, now he was barely able to protect himself. Yet he would have to do. He was all they had.

He looked down at his tightly clutched hand. The power of the Black Elfstone lay within. Bremen had warned him not to invoke it, and he had given his word to the old man that he would not. But things did not always work out the way you wanted.

He brought up his fist in a sudden sweep, feeling the dark pulse of the Elfstone against his palm. Summoning every last ounce of strength and determination that remained to him, he reached down into the heart of the dark magic and called forth its power. Already the Skull Bearers were reacting. Realizing the danger, they summoned their own deadly fire, a wicked green brilliance they launched at him with deadly efficiency. But they were not quick enough. The Black Elfstone had been awaiting Tay’s summons, anticipating it, linked to him from the moment of its taking, master to slave with the roles not yet determined. Pulsing with expectation, its magic surged from between his fingers in a swath of nonlight, a black void that swallowed up everything in its path. It smashed the fire of the Skull Bearers. It smashed the Skull Bearers themselves. It smashed the Gnome Hunters, all of them, even those who tried to flee, down to the last terrified man. It devoured everything. It burned men and monsters to ash, then stole away their lives and fed them back into the holder of the Stone.

Tay shuddered and cried out as the Elfstone’s magic returned to him, imbued with the lives of its victims. Deep into his body went the evil of the Skull Bearers and the killing force of their fire. All of their dark intent and wicked need surged through him, filling him, ravaging him. He recognized in that instant the secret of the Black Elfstone’s power — to negate the power of other magics, to steal them away, to make them its own. But the price was hideous, for the power stolen became the power of the Elfstone’s holder and changed the holder forever.

It was over in seconds. The whole of the enemy force that had confronted them was destroyed. On the sweep of the crater slope there were only bits of clothing and weapons and small piles of ash. In the air, there was the smell of burning flesh. Across the surface of the still crater waters, there were ripples from the passing of the Black Elfstone’s heat.

Tay dropped to his knees, the expended magic roiling through him. He could feel it eating away at his body and spirit, reducing them to dust. There was nothing he could do to stop it. He was being destroyed and made over. The Black Elfstone tumbled from his nerveless fingers onto the rocks and lay still. Its nonlight had gone out. Its pulsing had ceased. Tay stared fixedly at it, trying to find a way to concentrate his magic in an effort to stop what was happening to him. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain.

Nothing could have prepared him for this — nothing. He had disobeyed Bremen, and this was the price.

Then Jerle Shannara was holding him, bending close and saying something. Preia was there, too. He could hear their voices, but he could not understand the words. He kept his eyes closed, fighting off the Black Elfstone’s magic. He had gone back into the garden one time too many. The magic had seeded in him, taken root, and waited for him to succumb to its lure. It was a trap he had not foreseen. There had been too many other considerations, too many distractions.