The First King of Shannara

“Go left!” he gasped, pointing raggedly.

They turned as he directed. Preia Starle dropped back to take his arm, lending her support. He was breathing rapidly again, his eyes blinking as if to rid themselves of an irritation. Tay glanced back at him, then ahead once more. He still sensed nothing. He felt oddly defenseless, as if his magic had abandoned him and he could no longer rely on it. He gritted his teeth against his perceived inadequacy and forced himself to go on. His magic would never desert him, he admonished himself. Never.

They passed down a broad stairway that wound about the outer wall of a vast rotunda. Their footsteps echoed faintly in the muffling silence, and now Tay sensed the eyes again, more strongly this time, more evident. What lived within this keep was close.

They reached the bottom of the stairway and stopped. A courtyard opened before them, broad and bright with misty sunlight.

Shadows fell away, tattered and frayed. The musty staleness of the dark corridors faded. The dust and grit that hung upon the captured air disappeared.

At the center of the courtyard was a garden.

The garden was rectangular in shape, encircled by a broad walkway constructed of painted tiles and stone, the colors still resonant. Flowers grew along the outer border, a variety Tay could not identify, multicolored, profuse. The central portion of the garden was given over to a grove of slender trees and vines so closely intertwined as to be virtually inseparable, their leaves bright green and shiny, their limbs and trunks a curious mottled pattern.

A garden! Tay Trefenwyd marveled. Excitement washed through him. A garden, deep within the bowels of this ancient fortress, where nothing should grow, where no sunlight should reach! He could hardly believe it!

Almost without thinking, he came down off the stairs and hurried toward the garden’s edge. He was within several yards when Jerle Shannara caught hold of his arm and yanked him firmly back.

“Not so quick, Tay,” his friend warned.

Startled, Tay looked at the other, then saw Vree Erreden down on one knee again, shaking his head slowly from side to side as Preia held him. He realized suddenly how strong the impulse had been to go forward, how anxious he had been to explore. He realized as well that he had abandoned his defenses entirely. So eager had he been that he had released the protective shield of his Druid magic without a thought.

Saying nothing, he walked quickly to where Vree Erreden knelt. The locat grasped him immediately, sensing rather than seeing him, drawing him close. “The Black Elfstone,” he hissed through teeth clenched against some inner pain, “lies there!”

His hand, shaking, pointed at the garden.

Preia touched Tay’s arm gently so that he would look at her.

Her ginger eyes were wary, guarded. “He went down the moment you left the stairs. Something attacked him. What’s happening?”

Tay shook his head. “I’m not sure.”

He reached for Vree Erreden’s hands and took them in his own.

The locat flinched, then went still again. Tay summoned his magic, called up a healing balm, and sent it flowing into the other’s slender arms and body. Vree Erreden sighed and went still, his head drooping.

Preia looked at Tay, one eyebrow cocked. “Just hold him for a moment,” he said to her.

Then he rose again to stand with Jerle. “What do you suppose this garden is doing here?” he asked softly.

His friend shook his head. “Nothing good, if that’s where the Black Elfstone lies. I wouldn’t walk in there if I were you.”

Tay nodded. “But I cannot reach the Elfstone if I don’t.”

“I wonder if you can reach it even if you do. You said yourself that the vision warned that something wards the Stone. Perhaps it is this garden. Or something that lives within it.”

They stood close, staring into the tangle of vines and limbs, trying to detect something of the danger they sensed waiting. A soft wind seemed to ruffle the shiny leaves momentarily, but nothing else moved. Tay stretched out his arm and sent a feeler of Druid magic to probe the garden’s interior. The feeler snaked its way inward, searching carefully. But there was only more of what he could already see — the slender trees and vines with their shiny leaves and the earth from which they grew.

Yet he could feel life there, life beyond what the plants suggested, a presence strong and ancient and deadly.

“Walk with me,” he said to Jerle finally.