The First King of Shannara

Urprox Screl sighed. “Let me save you the trouble of wasting any more of your time. I was good at what I did, but I don’t do it anymore. I was a master smith, but those days are gone. I am retired. I don’t do metalwork of any kind. I don’t do specialty work, and I don’t accept commissions. I do wood carving, and that is all I do.”


The old man nodded, seemingly unfazed. He glanced past Urprox to the wooden bench and the carving that lay there, and asked, “Did you do that? May I have a look?”

Urprox shrugged and handed him the dog. The old man studied it for a long time, turning it over in his hands, tracing the shape of the wood. There was genuine interest in his eyes.

“This is very good,” he said finally, handing it to the girl, who accepted it without comment. “But not as good as your weapons work. Your true skill lies there. In the shaping of metal. Have you been carving wood long?”

“Since I was a child.” Urprox shifted his stance uneasily. “What do you want from me?”

“You must have had a very compelling reason to go back to wood carving after being so successful as a master smith,” the old man pressed, ignoring him.

Urprox felt his temper slip a notch. “I did. I had a very good reason, and I don’t want to talk about it with you.”

“No, I don’t suppose you do, but I am afraid that you must. We need your help, and my task in coming here is to persuade you of that.”

Urprox stared at him, more than a little astonished at his candor.

“Well, at least you are honest about your intentions. But now, of course, I am forewarned of them and am prepared to reject any argument you put forth. So you really are wasting your time.”

The old man smiled. “You were already forewarned. You are astute enough to discern that we have traveled some distance to see you and that we must therefore consider you quite important.”

The weathered face creased deeper. “Tell me, then. Why did you give it all up? Why did you quit being a smith? Why, when you had been one for so many years?”

Urprox Screl’s brow darkened. “I got tired of it.”

They waited for him to say more, but he refused to do so. The old man pursed his lips. “I think it was probably more than that.”

He paused a moment, and in that moment it seemed to Urprox as if the old man’s eyes turned white, as if they lost their color and their character and became as blank and unreadable as stone. It felt as if the old man was looking right through him.

“You lost heart,” the other said softly. “You are a gentle man with a wife and children, and for all your physical strength you do not like pain. But the weapons you forged were causing pain, and you knew that was happening and you detested it. You grew weary of knowing, and you decided enough was enough. You had money and other talents, so you simply closed your shop and walked away. No one knows this but you and Mina. No one understands. They think you mad. They shun you as they would a disease.”

The eyes cleared and fixed on him anew. “You are an outcast in your own city, and you do not understand why. But the truth is you are a man blessed with unique talent, and everyone who knows you or your work recognizes it and cannot accept that you would waste it so foolishly.”

Urprox Screl felt something cold creep up his spine. “You are entitled to your opinion. But now that you’ve given it, I don’t wish to talk to you anymore. I think you should leave.”

The old man looked off into the darkness, but he did not move from where he stood. The crowds had thinned behind him, and the night had closed about. Urprox Screl suddenly felt very alone and vulnerable. Even this close to familiar surroundings, to people who knew him, and to help if he should need it, he felt completely isolated.

The girl handed back the carving of the dog. Urprox took it from her, looking deep into her great dark eyes, drawn to her in a way he could not explain. There was something in the look she gave him that suggested she understood what he had done. He had not seen that look in anyone’s eyes but Mina’s. It surprised him to find it here, in the eyes of a girl who did not know him at all.

“Who are you?” he asked again, looking from one face to the other.

It was the old man who spoke. “We are the bearers of a charge that transcends all else. We have come a long way to fulfill that charge. Our journey has taken us to many places, and even though you are important to its success, it will not end here. You are but one piece in the puzzle we must assemble. We have need of a sword, Urprox Screl, a sword unlike any other ever forged. It requires the hands of a master smith to shape it. It will have special properties. It is intended not to destroy, but to save. It will be both the hardest and finest work you have ever done or will ever do.”

The big man smiled nervously. “Bold words. But I don’t think I believe them.”

“Because you do not want to forge another weapon in your lifetime. Because you have left all that behind, and the pact you made with yourself will be compromised if you relent now.”