The First King of Shannara

He smiled faintly. “You don’t even know where I’m going.”


She nodded. “It doesn’t matter. I know what cause you serve. I know that you take the Druids Risca and Tay Trefenwyd with you. I want to be part of your company. Wait. Before you say anything, hear me out. I will leave Paranor whether you take me with you or not. I am in disfavor here, with Athabasca in particular. The reason I am in disfavor is that I choose to pursue the study of magic when it has been forbidden me. I am to be a Healer only, it has been decided. I am to use the skills and learning the Council feels appropriate.”

For a woman, Bremen thought she might add, the phrase hidden in the words she spoke.

“I have learned all that they have to teach me,” she continued. “They will not admit this, but it is so. I need a new teacher. I need you. You know more about the magic than anyone. You understand its nuances and demands, the complications of employing it, the difficulties of assimilating it into your life. No one else has your experience. I would like to study with you.”

He shook his head slowly. “Mareth, where I go, no one who is not experienced should venture.”

“It will be dangerous?” she asked.

“Even for me. Certainly for Risca and Tay, who at least know something of the magic’s use. But especially for you.”

“No,” she said quietly, clearly ready for this argument. “It will not be as dangerous for me as you think. There is something about me that I haven’t told you yet. Something that no one knows here at Paranor, although I think Athabasca suspects. I am not entirely unskilled. I have use of magic beyond that which I would master from study. I have magic born to me.”

Bremen stared. “Innate magic?”

“You do not believe me,” she said at once.

In truth, he did not. Innate magic was unheard of. Magic was acquired through study and practice, not inherited. At least, not in these times. It had been different in the time of faerie, of course, when magic was as much a part of a creature’s inherited character as the makeup of his blood and tissue. But no one in the Four Lands for as long as anyone could remember had been born with magic.

No one human.

He continued to stare at her.

“The difficulty with my magic, you see,” she continued, “is that I cannot always control it. It comes and goes in spurts of emotion, in the rise and fall of my temperature, in the fits and starts of my thinking, and with a dozen other vicissitudes I cannot entirely manage. I can command it to me, but then sometimes it does what it will.”

She hesitated, and for the first time her gaze fell momentarily before lifting again to meet his own. When she spoke, he thought he detected a hint of desperation in her low voice. “I must be wary of everything I do. I am constantly hiding bits and pieces of myself, keeping careful watch over my behavior, my reactions, even my most innocent habits.” She compressed her lips. “I cannot continue to live like this. I came to Paranor for help. I have not found it. Now I am turning to you.”

She paused and then added, “Please.”

There was a poignancy in that single word that surprised him.

For just a moment she lost her composure, the iron-willed, hardened appearance she had perfected in order to protect herself.

He didn’t know yet if he believed her; he thought that maybe he did. But he was certain that her need, whatever its nature, was very real.

“I will bring something useful to your company if you take me with you,” she said quietly. “I will be a faithful ally. I will do what is required of me. If you should be forced to stand against the Warlock Lord or his minions, I will stand with you.” She leaned forward in a barely perceptible morion, little more than an inclining of her dark head. “My magic,” she confided in a small voice, “is very powerful.”

He reached for her hand and held it between his own. “If you will agree to wait until after sunrise, I will give this matter some thought,“ he told her. ”I will have to confer with the others, with Tay and Risca when they arrive.”

She nodded and looked past him. “And your big friend?”

“Yes, with Kinson also.”

“But he has no skill with magic, does he? Like the rest of you?”

“No, but he is skilled in other ways. You can sense that about him, can you? That he is without the use of magic?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me. Did you use magic to find us here in this concealment?”

She shook her head. “No. It was instinct. I could sense you. I have always been able to do that.” She stared at him, catching the look in his eye. “Is that a form of magic, Bremen?”

“It is. Not a magic you can identify as easily as some, but magic nonetheless. Innate magic, I might add — absent acquired skill.”

“I have no acquired skill,” she said quietly, folding her arms into her robes as if she were suddenly cold.