The First King of Shannara

And Bremen, captured heart and soul by the power of the shade’s words, did so.

When it was finished and the shade of Galaphile was gone, when the waters of the Hadeshorn had become still and flat once more and the dawn was creeping silver and gold out of the east, the old man walked to the rim of the Valley of Shale and slept for a time amid the littered black rock. The sun rose and the day brightened, but the Druid did not wake. He slept a deep, dreamfilled sleep, and the voices of the dead whispered to him in words he could not comprehend. He woke at sunset, haunted by the dreams, by his inability to decipher their meaning and his fear that they hid from him secrets that he must reveal if the Races were to survive. He sat amid the heat and shadows in the darkening twilight, pulled the remainder of his bread from his pack, and ate half of it in silence, staring out at the mountains, at the high, strange formations of the Dragon’s Teeth where the clouds scraped against the jagged tips on their way east to the plains. He drank from the aleskin, now almost empty, and thought on what he had learned.

Of the secret of the sword.

Of the nature of its magic.

Then he rose and went back down out of the foothills to where he had left his horse the night before. He found the horse gone.

Someone had taken it, the thief s footprints plain in the dust, one set only, approaching, then departing, the horse in tow. He gave the matter almost no thought, but instead began to walk west, unwilling to delay the start of his journey longer. It would take him at least four days afoot, longer if he had to avoid the Northland army, which he almost certainly would. But there was no help for it. Perhaps he could find another horse on the way.

The night deepened and the moon rose, filling out again, brightening the sky, the clouds brief shadows against its widening crescent as they sailed past in silent procession. He walked steadily, following the silver thread of the Mermidon as it snaked its way west, keeping in the shadow of the Dragon’s Teeth, where the moonlight would not reveal him. He considered his choices as he walked, turning them over and over in his mind. Galaphile came to him, spoke to him, and revealed to him anew. The spirits of the Druids filed past him once more, solemn and voiceless wraiths, their hands reaching for the pommel of the sword, lowering to the image of the Eilt Druin, touching it momentarily and lifting away.

Passing on the truths they had discovered in life. Imbuing it with the power such truths could provide.

Empowering it.

He breathed deeply the night air. Did he understand fully now the power of this talisman? He thought so, and yet it seemed so small a magic to trust in battle against so powerful an enemy. How was he to convince the man who bore it that it was sufficient to prevail? How much should he reveal of what he knew? Too little, and he risked losing the bearer to ignorance. Too much, and he risked losing him to fear. On which side should he err?

Would he know when he met the man?

He felt adrift with his uncertainty. So much depended on this weapon, and yet it had been left to him alone to decide on the manner of its use.

To him alone, because that was the burden he had assumed and the pact he had made.

The night wore on, and he reached the juncture of the river where it branched south through the Runne. The wind blew out of the southwest and carried on its back the smell of death. Bremen drew up short as the stench filled his nostrils. There was killing below the Mermidon, and it was massive. He debated his course of action, then walked on to a narrows in the river’s bend and crossed. Below lay Varfleet, the Southland settlement from which Kinson had been recruited five years earlier. The stench rose from there.

He reached the town while morning was still several hours away, the night a silent, dark shroud. The smell sharpened as he neared, and he knew at once what had happened. Smoke rose, lazy swirls of gray ribbon in the moonlight. Red embers glowed. Timbers jutted from the earth like spears. Varfleet had been burned to the ground, and all of its people killed or driven off. Thousands of them. The old man shook his head hopelessly as he entered the silent, empty streets. Buildings were razed and looted. People and animals lay dead at every turn, sprawled in grotesque, careless heaps amid the rubble. He walked through the devastation and wondered at its savagery. He stepped over the body of an old man, eyes open and staring sightlessly. A rat eased from beneath the corpse and scurried away.