The First King of Shannara

The shopkeeper stared at him as if he had lost his mind. “You wish to have a weapon forged by the maker of my sword?”


Kinson nodded, then added quickly, “Are you him?”

The shopkeeper smiled bleakly. “No. But you might as well ask me as ask the man who is, for all the good it will do you.”

Kinson shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t guess you do.” The shopkeeper sighed. “Listen close, and I’ll explain.”



Bremen’s first reaction to Mareth’s words was to want to tell her straight out that the charge was ridiculous. But the look on her face warned him to reconsider. She must have spent a long time arriving at her conclusion, and she had not done so lightly. She deserved to be taken seriously.

“Mareth, how did you decide I was your father?” he asked gently.

The night was fragrant with the smell of grasses and flowers, and the light of moon and stars lent a soft silver cast to the hills above the garish brightness of the distant city. Mareth glanced away for a moment, as if looking for her answer in the darkness.

“You think me a fool,” she hissed.

“No, never that. Tell me your reasoning. Please.”

She shook her head at something unseen. “From long before the time of my birth, the Druids kept to themselves at Paranor. They had withdrawn from the Races, abandoning their earlier practice of going out among the people. Now and again, one would return home to visit family and friends, but none of these were from my village. Few bothered to venture into the Southland at all.

“But there was one who did, one who visited regularly. You. You came into the Southland in spite of the suspicion directed at the Druids. You were even seen now and again. It was whispered among the people of my village that when my mother conceived me, you were the demon, the dark wraith, who seduced her, who made her fall in love with him!”

She went silent again. She was breathing hard. There was an unspoken challenge in her words that dared him to deny that it was so. She was all tension and hard edges, her magic a crackle of dark energy at the tips other fingers.

Her eyes burned into him. “I have been looking for you for as long as I can remember. I have carried the burden of my magic like a weight around my neck, and not one day has passed when it has not reminded me of you. My mother could not tell me of you. The rumors were all I had. But in my travels I always looked. I knew that one day I would find you. I went to Storlock thinking to find you, thinking you might pass through. You didn’t, but Cogline gave me entry into Paranor and that was better still, because I knew that eventually you would come there.”

“And so you asked to come with me when I did.” He considered. “Why did you not tell me then?”

She shook her head. “I wanted to know you better first I wanted to see for myself what kind of man my father was.”

He nodded slowly, thinking the matter through. Then he folded his hands in front of him, old bones and parchment skin feeling used and weathered beyond repair.

“You saved my life twice in that time.” His smile was worn and his eyes curious. “Once at the Hadeshorn, once at Paranor.”

She stared at him, thinking back on what she had done, having nothing to say.

“I am not your father, Mareth,” he told her.

“Of course you would say that!”

“If I were your father,” he said quietly, “I would be proud to admit it. But I am not. At the time of your conception, I was traveling the Four Lands and might even have come to the village of your mother. But I have no children. I lack even the possibility of children. I have been alive a long time, kept so by the Druid Sleep. But the Sleep has demanded much of me. It has given me time that I would not otherwise have, but it has exacted a price. Part of that price is an inability to sire children. Consequently, I have never entered into a relationship with a woman. I have never taken a lover. I was in love once, long ago, so long that I barely remember the face of the girl. It was before I became a Druid. It was before I began to live my present life. Since then, there has been no one.”

“I do not believe you,” she said at once.

He smiled sadly. “Yes, you do. You know that I am telling you the truth. You can sense it. I am not your father. But the truth of things may be harsher still. The superstitions of the people of your village probably helped make them believe that I was the man who conceived you. My name would be readily known to them, and perhaps they settled on it simply because your father was a black-cloaked stranger who possessed magic. But listen to me, Mareth. There is more to consider, and it will not be pleasant for you.”