The First King of Shannara

After a time, the overhangs dropped so low that they were forced to proceed at a crouch. Then the defile branched left and right. Preia told them to wait and went right. She returned after a very long time and took them left. After a short distance the defile widened again, and they were able to stand once more. Ahead, the light grew brighter. They were nearing the passageway’s end.

Fifty yards farther on, the cleft opened out onto the edge of a vast lake. The lake was so unexpected that everyone stopped where they were and stood staring at it. It rested within a vast crater, its waters broad and still, undisturbed by even the faintest ripple. Overhead, the sky was visible, a cloudless blue dome that channeled light and warmth to the crater. Sunlight reflected off the lake, and the lake mirrored the rock walls surrounding it in perfect detail. Tay scanned the cliffs and found the nests of the seabirds, set high in the rocks. No birds were visible. Within the shelter of the mountain walls and across the flat expanse of the lake, nothing moved, the silence vast and complete and as fragile as glass.

After a short, hushed conference with Jerle, Preia Starle took them left along the edge of the lakeshore. The shoreline was a mix of crushed rock and flat shelves, and the scrape of their boots as they proceeded echoed eerily in the crater’s cavernous depths. Tay cast his magic forward of where they walked, hunting for pitfalls, exploring for hidden dangers. What he found were lines of earth power so massive and so old that they tore apart his fragile net and forced him to rebuild it. He drew Jerle close to him and gave warning. There was tremendous magic at work here, magic as old as time and as settled. It warded the crater and everything that lay within. He could find no specific danger from it, but could not trace its source or discover its use. He did not think them threatened by it, but they would be smart to proceed with caution.

They went on until they were nearly halfway around the lake.

Still there was no sign of life, no indication of anything beyond what they could see before them. Neither Tay with his Druid magic nor Vree Erreden with his locat talent could discover what they searched for. The sun had moved out of the shadow of the cliff rim so that it blazed directly down on them, a burning orb against the blue. They could not look up at it without being blinded, and so kept their gaze lowered as they walked.

It was then, with the advent of high noon, that Tay Trefenwyd saw the shadow.

He had moved off the waterline momentarily to higher ground, trying to see the far shore through the dazzling reflection of the sun on the lake’s still surface. As he searched for a position that would lessen the brightness, he saw how the sun had thrown the shadow of a rock projection far overhead across the length of the lake onto the cliff face several hundred yards ahead. The point of the shadow climbed the rock wall to a narrow fissure and stopped.

Something about the fissure caught his eye. He sent his magic to probe the opening.

What he found, carved into the rock above, was writing.

He went forward quickly to catch Preia, and together they turned the company inland. Moments later they stood before the fissure, staring upward in silent contemplation of the writing. It was ancient and indecipherable. It was Elven, but the dialect was unfamiliar. The carving itself was so weathered it was almost worn away.

Then an inspired Vree Erreden stepped forward, had Tay and Jerle boost him, and reached up to run his fingers over the writing.

He remained suspended for a moment, eyes closed, hands moving, stopping, moving on. Then he slid down again. As if in a trance, he bent to the rock on which they stood, and without seeming to look at what he was doing, his eyes focused somewhere beyond what they could see, he scratched words onto a smooth surface with a piece of jagged rock.

Tay bent close to read.



THIS IS THE CHEW MAGNA. WE LIVE HERE STILL.

TOUCH NOTHING. TAKE NOTHING.

OUR ROOTS ARE DEEP AND STRONG.

BEWARE.



“What does it mean?” Jerle whispered.

Tay shook his head. “That magic wards what lies beyond this opening. That any disturbance will bring unpleasant consequences.”

“It says they are still alive,” Vree Erreden observed, his voice a hiss of disbelief. “That can’t be! Look at the carving! The writing is out of the time of faerie!”

They stood staring at the writing, the fissure, and each other.

Behind them, the Elven Hunters and Preia Starle waited. No one spoke. There was a sense of time dropping away, of past and present joining and transcending the passing of lives and history, There was a sense of standing at the edge of a cliff, knowing that one false step would send you hurtling to your death. Tay’s awareness of the magic’s presence was so strong that it seemed he could feel its touch against his skin. Old, powerful, iron-willed, and conjured out of purpose and need, ir filled up his senses and threatened to overwhelm him.

“We did not come this far to turn back,” Jerle Shannara observed quietly, looking over at him. “Not for any reason.”