The First King of Shannara

Her mouth tightened. “Why am I not surprised?”


“I have been giving thought to the nature of your magic, even before this. Innate magic, magic born to you, as indigenous to who and what you are as the flesh of your body. It happens seldom. It was a characteristic of the faerie people, but they have mostly been dead for centuries. Except for the Elves, and the Elves have lost their magic — all but a little. The Druids, myself included, lack any form of innate magic. So where did yours come from if your father was a Druid? Suppose for a moment that he was. Which ot the Druids has that sort of power? Which of them, that magic would have been necessary for your conception?”

“Oh, Shades,” she said softly, seeing now where he was going with this.

“Wait, say nothing yet,” he urged. He reached forward and took her hands in his. She let him do so, her dark eyes wide, her face stricken. “Be strong, Mareth. You must. Your father was described by the people of your village as a demon and a wraith, a dark creature who could take on different looks as needed. You used the words yourself. That sort of magic would not have been practiced by a Druid. For the most part, it could not have been. But there are others for whom the taking on of such magic would have been easy.”

“Lies,” she whispered, but there was no force behind the accusation.

“The Warlock Lord has creatures in his service who assume the appearance of humans. They do so for various reasons. They will try to subvert the ones they pretend to be. They will try to deceive them. They do so to win them over and to use them. Sometimes the subversion is done for no better purpose than to capture what was lost of their own humanity, to relive in some small way the life that was lost to them when they became the things they are. Sometimes they do so simply out of malice. The magic these creatures have embraced has become so much a part of who and what they are that they use it without thinking. They do not differentiate between two separate needs. They act on instinct and to sate whatever desire drives them at a given moment. Not out of reason or emotion, but out of instinct.”

There were tears in Mareth’s eyes. “My father?”

Bremen nodded slowly. “It would explain the magic born to you. Innate magic, the dark gift bequeathed you by your father. Not a Druid’s gift, but the gift of a creature for whom magic has become lifeblood. It is so, Mareth. It is hard to accept, I know, but it is so.”

“Yes,” she whispered, speaking so low that he could barely hear her. “I was so sure.”

Her head lowered, and she began to cry. Her hands clenched his, and the magic died away, fading with the anger and tension, curling into a hard knot deep within.

Bremen shifted closer, putting his thin arm around her shoulders. “One thing more, child,” he told her softly. “I would be your father still, if you would have me. I would be as much a parent to you as if you were my own. I think much of you. I would give you what advice I could in your struggle to comprehend the nature of your magic. The first thing I would tell you is that you are not your father. You are nothing like him, dark thing that he was, not even in your birthright. The magic is your own. You have its power to bear, and that is a heavy weight. But though the magic was given to you by your father, it does not define your character or dictate the nature of your heart. You are a good and strong person, Mareth. You are nothing of the dark creature who spawned you.”

Mareth’s head moved against his shoulder. “You cannot know. I may be exactly that.”

“No,” he soothed. “No. You are nothing of him, child. Nothing.”

He stroked her dark hair and held her to him, letting her cry, letting the pain of so many years leak away. She would be empty and numb when it was gone, and she must be given hope and purpose to fill her anew.

He thought now that he had a way to give her that.



Two full days passed before Kinson Ravenlock returned.

He walked from the valley at sunset, striding out of the raw orange light generated by the smoke and fire of Dechtera’s great furnaces. He was eager to reach them, to give them his news, and he tossed off his dusty cloak with a flourish and embraced them both enthusiastically.

“I have found the man we want,” he announced, dropping down cross-legged in the grass and accepting the aleskin Mareth passed him. “The very man, in my opinion.” His smile broadened, and he gave them both a quick shrug. “Unfortunately, he doesn’t agree with me. Someone will have to persuade him I’m right. That’s why I’ve come back for you.”

Bremen nodded and motioned to the aleskin. “Drink, have something to eat, and then tell us all about it.”