The First King of Shannara

Within Paranor, Bremen moved swiftly down the empty halls, as silent as a cloud crossing the sky. He explored as he went, attuned to the tastes and smells and sounds of the Keep. He reached out with his senses and instincts to uncover the danger of which Caerid Lock had warned, wary of its presence and intent.

But he could not find it. Either it was very well concealed or it had departed.

Be cautious, he urged himself. Be alert.

Everyone within the Keep was dead — of that much he was certain. All of the Druids, all of their guards, all who had lived and worked and studied here for so many years, all those he had left behind just four days ago. The shock of it was like a blow to the stomach; it took the wind and the strength from him and left him numb with disbelief. All dead. He had known it could happen, had believed it possible, had even seen the vision of it. But the reality was much worse. Bodies lay strewn everywhere, twisted in death.

Some had died by the sword. Some had been torn apart. Some, he sensed, had been taken to the lower depths of the Keep and killed there. But none had survived. No heartbeat reached his ears. No voice called. No living thing stirred. Paranor was a charnel house.

It was a tomb.

He worked his way through the echoing corridors to the Assembly and there found Athabasca, his face frozen with the moment of his death, his corpse a sad and ruined thing. Bremen stooped to look for the Eilt Druin and did not find it. He straightened and paused. He felt only sadness for the High Druid, only regret. Seeing him thus, seeing all of them dead and the castle of the Druids empty, made him wish he had tried harder in his efforts to persuade them of the danger. Guilt washed through him. He could not help himself. He was in some way to blame for this. His was the knowledge and the power, and he had failed to use either in a convincing way. This was the result. He drew Athabasca’s robes across his face and walked away.

He climbed then to the library, keeping his back to the wall as he moved through the castle’s dead shell, listening for the betraying sounds of danger, cautious and alert. It was here, the danger of which Caerid Lock and the vision both had warned.

The traitor Druids, in some form, waiting. So be it. But the Warlock Lord was gone, and his creatures with him. The cauldron of magic that had been stirred with their coming — Bremen’s trip wire set in place within the Druid Well — had bubbled and boiled just enough to cause them to fear and to persuade them not to linger. Listening, he could hear it now, a faint hiss, the magic sunk back within the pit, the magic that gave life to the Keep, that gave power to most of the Druid spells. Vast and mercurial, it gave back only a portion of what it promised, and that so small it paled in the face of Brona’s monstrous power. Still, it had served its purpose this once, driving the rebel Druid from the Keep.

Bremen sighed. There was no pleasure to be taken from so small a victory. Brona had his revenge, and that was what mattered. He had destroyed those who had opposed him, who would have challenged him, and he had savaged their safehold. Now there was no one to stop him save one old man and a handful of followers.

Perhaps. Perhaps.

He reached the library and found Kahle Rese. He cried silently on seeing him, unable to help himself. He covered his old friend as well, unable to look upon him more than once, and went through the hidden doorway to the room in which the Druid Histories were concealed. The room was empty of everything but the worktable and chairs, and the dust that Bremen had given Kahle as a last resort lay scattered on the floor, dull now and lifeless, evidence that it had been put to the use for which it was intended. Bremen tried momentarily to see Kahle in those last few moments of his life. He could not manage it. It was enough to know that the Druid Histories were safe. That would have to serve as his old friend’s epitaph.

He heard something then, a sound that came from somewhere far below, a sound so soft that he detected it with his instincts rather than his ears. He hastened from the room, sensing that whatever time had been allotted him in Paranor was running out. He must find the Eilt Druin now. Locating the medallion was all that was left. Athabasca had not been wearing it. It might have been taken from his body, but Bremen did not think so. The attack had come at night, Caerid Lock had said, and no one had been ready.

Athabasca would have been roused from his bed. He would not have taken time to put on the medallion. It was probably in his chambers.

Bremen climbed the stairs to the High Druid’s office, a soundless, voiceless ghost among the dead. He felt as if he had no weight, no substance, no presence. He was inconsequential, a madman playing with fire and having no cure for the burns it was sure to inflict. He felt tired, lost to his fears for the world. It was such a hopeless task he had set himself — creating a magic, forging a talisman to contain it, finding a champion to wield it.