The First King of Shannara

He found no water on the plains as midday approached, and so he went on without stopping. He dismounted and walked the horse for a time, hooding himself against the noon heat, the sun a brilliant white orb that burned down with pitiless insistence. He pondered the enormity of the danger that the people of the Four Lands faced. Like the land beneath the sun, they seemed so helpless. So much depended on things unknown — the sword’s magic, the sword’s wielder, the varied quests of the individual members of their little company, and the coming together of all of these at the right time and place. The undertaking was ludicrous when dissected and examined in its separate parts, fraught with the possibility of failure. Yet when considered as a whole, when looked at in terms of need measured against determination, failure was unthinkable.

With night’s fall, he camped on the open plains in a ravine where a small trickle of water and some sparse grass allowed the horse to gain nourishment. Bremen ate a little of the bread he still carried and drank from the aleskin. He watched the night sky offer up its display of stars and saw a quarter-moon on the rise crest the horizon south. He sat with the sword in his lap and pondered anew its use. He ran his fingers over the crest of the Eilt Drain, as if by doing so he might discover the secret of its magic. You will know what is required, the King of the Silver River had said. The hours slipped away as he sat thinking, the night about him still and at peace. The Northland army was too far away now to be heard, its fires too distant to be seen. The Rabb this night belonged to him, and it felt as if he were the only living person in all the world.

He rode on at dawn, making better time this day. The sky clouded across the sun, lessening the force of its heat. Dust rose from his horse’s hooves, small explosions that drifted and scattered in a soft west wind. Ahead, the country began to change, to turn green again where the Mermidon flowed down out of the Runne. Trees lifted from the flats, small stands that warded springs and tributaries of the larger river. By late afternoon, he had crossed at a wide shallows and was moving toward the wall of the Dragon’s Teeth. He could have stopped there and rested, but he chose to go on. Time was a harsh taskmaster and did not allow personal indulgence.

By nightfall, he had reached the foothills that led up into the Valley of Shale. He dismounted and tethered his horse close by a spring. He watched the sun sink behind the Runne and ate his dinner, thinking of what lay ahead. A long night, for one thing Success or failure, for another. He could break it down quite simply, but the uncertainty was still enormous. His mind drifted for a time, and he found himself picking out bits and pieces of his life to reexamine, as if by doing so he might find some measure ot reassurance in his capabilities. He had enjoyed some small measure of success in his efforts to thwart the Warlock Lord, and he could take heart from that. But he knew that in this dangerous game a single misstep could prove fatal and all that had been accomplished could be undone. He wondered at the unfaimess ot it, but knew that never in the history of the world had fairness determined anything that mattered.

When midnight came, he rose and walked up into the mountains. He wore the black robes of his office, the insignia of the Eilt Druin emblazoned on his breast, and he carried Urprox Screl’s wondrous sword. He smiled. Urprox Screl’s sword. He should call it something else, for it belonged to the smith no longer. But there was no other name for it as yet, and no way to give it one until its real owner was discovered or its purpose determined. So he put the matter of the sword’s name aside, breathing in the night air, so cool and clean in these foothills, so clear that it seemed as it he could see forever.

He passed through the draws and defiles that led to the Valley of Shale, and it was still several hours before dawn when he reached his destination. He stood for a time at the rim of the valley and looked down at the Hadeshorn, the lake as still and flat as glass, reflecting an image of a night sky bright with stars. He looked into the mirror of the silent waters, and he found himself wondering at the secrets that it hid. Could he unlock just a handful of those? Could he find a way to discover just one or two, those that would give him a chance of successfully carrying on his struggle? There, in the depths of that lake, the answers waited, treasures hoarded and protected by the spirits of the dead, maybe because it was all that remained to them of the life they had departed, maybe because in death you had so little you could call your own.

He sat then amid the jumbled rock and continued to stare at the lake and to ponder its mysteries. What was it like when your life was gone and you assumed spirit form? What was it like to live within the waters of the Hadeshorn? Did you feel in death anything of what you felt in life? Did you cany all your memories with you? Did you have the same longings and needs? Was there purpose in being when your corporeal body was gone?