The First King of Shannara

— You would pay any price to do so —


Bremen felt the snake within spring deep into his heart. “Yes,” he whispered in despair.

The spirit of Galaphile spread its arms as if to enfold the old man, as if to shelter and protect him.

— Watch —

Visions began to appear against the black spread of its cloaked form, taking shape within the shroud of its body. One by one, they materialized out of the darkness, vague and insubstantial, shimmering like the waters of the Hadeshorn with the coming of the spirits. Bremen watched the images parade before him, and he was drawn to them as to light in darkness.

There were four.

In the first, he stood within the ancient fortress of Paranor. All around him there was death. No one lived within the Keep, all slain by treachery, all destroyed by wicked stealth. Blackness cloaked the castle of the Druids, and blackness stirred within its shadows in the form of assassins waiting, a deadly force. But beyond that blackness shone with gleaming certainty the bright, shimmering medallion of the High Druids, awaiting his coming, needful of his touch, an image of a hand raised aloft with a burning torch — the cherished Eilt Druin.

The vision vanished, and he soared now across the vast expanse of the Wesdand. He looked down, amazed, unable to account for his flight. At first he could not determine where he was. Then he recognized the lush valley of the Sarandanon and beyond, the blue expanse of the Innisbore. Clouds obscured his vision momentarily, changing everything. Then he saw mountains — the Kensrowe or the Breakline? Within their mass were twin peaks, fingers of a hand split outward from each other in a V shape. Between them a pass led to a vast cluster of fingers, all jammed together, crushed into a single mass. Within the fingers was a fortress, hidden away, ancient beyond imagining, a place come out of the time of faerie. Bremen swooped down into its blackness and found death waiting, though he could not spy out its face. And there, within its coils, lay the Black Elfstone.

This vision vanished, too, and now he stood upon a battlefield.

The dead and wounded lay all about, men from all the Races and things from no race known to man. Blood streaked the earth, and the cries of the combatants and the clash of their weapons rang out in the fading gray light of a late afternoon sky. Before him stood a man, his face turned away. He was tall and blond. He was an Elf.

He carried in his right hand a gleaming sword. Several yards farther away was the Warlock Lord, black-robed and terrible, an indomitable presence that challenged all. He seemed to wait on the tall man, unhurried, confident, defiant. The tall man advanced, raising high the sword, and beneath the gloved hand on the weapon’s handle was the insignia of the Eilt Druin.

One last vision appeared. It was dark and clouded and filled with sounds of sorrow and despair. Bremen stood once more in the Valley of Shale before the waters of the Hadeshorn. He faced anew the shade of Galaphile, watching as the smaller, brighter spirits swirled about it like smoke. At his side was a boy, tall and lean and dark, barely fifteen, so solemn he might have been in mourning. The boy turned to Bremen, and the Druid looked into his eyes... his eyes...

The visions faded and were gone. The shade of Galaphile drew itself into a tighter coalescence, masking away the images, stealing away the brief light they had given. Bremen stared, blinking, wondering at what he had witnessed.

“Will these happen?” he whispered to the shade. “Will they come to pass?”

— Some have come to pass already —

“The Druids, Paranor...?”

— Do not ask more —;

“But what can I...?”

The shade gestured, dismissing out of hand the old man’s questions. Bremen caught his breath as bands of iron tightened around his chest. The bands released, and he swallowed down his fear.

Spray flew from the Hadeshorn in a bright geyser, diamonds against the black velvet night.

The shade began to recede.

— Do not forget —

Bremen lifted his hand in a futile effort to slow the other’s departure. “Wait!”

— A price for each —

The old man shook his head in confusion. A price for each? Each what? For whom?

— Remember —

Then the Hadeshorn boiled anew, and the ghost sank slowly back into the churning waters, drawing down with it all of the brighter, smaller spirits that had accompanied it. Down they went in a rush of spray and mist, amid-cries and whimpers from the dead, back to the netherworld from which they had come. Water exploded in a massive column as they disappeared, breaking apart the silence and dead air in a frightening explosion.

Then the storm came flooding in, with wind and rain, with thunder and lightning, hammering into the old man. Bremen went down with the blow, felled in an instant.