The First King of Shannara

Bremen put his hand on the small man’s narrow shoulder. “You were always the best reasoned of us all. Would you consider making a short journey with me?”


“You seek to rescue me from what you perceive to be my fate, do you?” The other man laughed. “Too late for that, Bremen. My fate is tied irrevocably to these walls and the writings of these few books I manage. I am too old and too set in my ways to give up a lifetime’s work. This is all I know. I am one of those Druids I described, old friend — hidebound and moribund to the last. What happens to Paranor happens also to me.”

Bremen nodded. He had thought Kahle Rese would say as much, but he had needed to ask. “I wish you would reconsider. There are other walls to live within and other libraries to tend.”

“Are there?” Kahle asked, arching one eyebrow. “Well, they wait for other hands, I suspect. I belong here.”

Bremen sighed. “Then help me in another way, Kahle. I pray I am wrong in my assessment of the danger. I pray I am mistaken in what I think will occur. But if I am not, and if the Warlock Lord comes to Paranor, and if the gates should not hold against him, then someone must act to save the Druid Histories.” He paused.

“Are they still kept separate within the adjoining room — behind the bookcase door?”

“Still and always,” Kahle advised.

Bremen reached into his robes and withdrew a small leather pouch. “Within is a special dust,” he told his friend. “If the Warlock Lord should come within these walls, throw it across the Druid Histories, and they will be sealed away. The dust will hide them. The dust will keep them safe.”

He handed the pouch to Kahle, who accepted it reluctantly. The wizened Druid held the pouch out in the cup of his hand as if to measure its worth. “Elf magic?” he asked, and Bremen nodded.

“Some form of faerie dust, I suppose. Some form of old-world sorcery.” He grinned mischievously. “Do you know what would happen to me if Athabasca found this in my possession?”

“I do,” Bremen replied solemnly. “But he won’t find it, will he?”

Kahle regarded the pouch thoughtfully for a moment, then tucked it into his robes. “No,” he agreed, “he won’t.” His brow furrowed. “But I am not sure I can promise I will use it, no matter what the cause. I am like Athabasca in this one matter, Bremen. I am opposed to involvement of the magic in the carrying out of my duties. I deplore magic as a means to any end. You know that. I have made it plain enough before, haven’t I?”

“You have.”

“And still you ask me to do this?”

“I must. Who else can I turn to? Who else can I trust? I leave it to your good judgment, Kahle. Use the dust only if circumstances are so dire that the lives of all are threatened and no one will be left to care for the books. Do not let them fall into the hands of those who will misuse the knowledge. That would be worse than any imagined result of employing magic.”

Kahle regarded him solemnly, then nodded. “It would, indeed. Very well. I will keep the dust with me and use it should the worst come to pass. But only then.”

They faced each other in the ensuing silence, all the words spoken, nothing left to say.

“You should reconsider your decision to come with me,” Bremen tried a final time.

Kahle smiled, a brittle twist of his thin mouth. “You asked me to come with you once before, when you chose to leave Paranor and pursue your studies of the magic elsewhere. I told you then I would never leave, that this is where I belong. Nothing has changed.”

Bremen felt a bitter helplessness creep through him, and he smiled quickly to keep it from showing. “Then goodbye, Kahle Rese, my oldest and greatest friend. Keep well.”

The small man embraced him, hands gripping the old man’s slender frame and holding fast. “Goodbye, Bremen.” His voice was a whisper. “This one time, I hope you are wrong.”

Bremen nodded wordlessly. Then he turned and went out the library door without looking back. He found himself wishing that things could be different, knowing they could not. He moved swiftly down the hallway to the door that opened into the back stairs passageway that had brought him. He found himself looking at the tapestries and artifacts as if he had never seen them — or perhaps as if he would never see them again. He felt some part of himself slipping away, just as it had when he left Paranor the first time. He did not like to admit it, but this was still more home to him than any other place, and as it was with all homes, it laid claim to him in ways that could not be judged or measured.

He went through the door into the near darkness of the landing beyond and found himself face-to-face with Risca and Tay Trefenwyd.