The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

But Pen had stayed on, his friendships with Kermadec, Tagwen, and Khyber Elessedil influencing his decision at least in part. All were aware of the transition Grianne was working; all were anxious to help her see it through. Pen could do no less, he told his parents. Bek understood; Rue accepted. They made him promise he would not stay past the end of the month. They wished Grianne and the others well, said good-bye, and flew Swift Sure home. Grianne never told them all of what she intended, although she would have liked to tell Bek. But it was best if she didn’t, she told herself. It would be easier on them if they didn’t know.

She had dissolved the order and dismissed those still in her service. As Ard Rhys, she had the power to do this, and there was no one who would question her now. She gave Paranor into the keeping of Khyber, Bellizen, and Trefen Morys. When the time was right and when they had found a way to do so, they would re-form the order. A handful of others who had remained loyal were invited to stay, as well. But she charged the three she trusted most with spearheading the task of carrying on, the ones she believed would work the hardest. All three had asked her to reconsider. All had pleaded inexperience and limited skills. They were not equal to the task. Others could do better.

But there were no others she could rely on, and there were covenants to monitor, a part of the agreement that she had forged with the Federation and the Free-born. Her young successors would struggle at first, but they would learn from their mistakes and they would grow from their experiences. They would survive, protected as they were by Paranor and their magic, by the mystique of the Druids, and by their own perseverance and determination. She had thought this through carefully after talking with each. It was the right choice.

In the end, persuaded that she would not accept their refusals, they had acquiesced. They would select those men and women who would make up the next generation of Druids at Paranor. Perhaps, in time, the governments and peoples of the Four Lands would come to accept them as a good and necessary force for the furtherance of peace and cooperation among the Races. Certainly, they would have a better chance of achieving that goal than Grianne did.

Just then the Elves and the Federation were in the difficult process of putting themselves back together. Arling Elessedil would serve as Queen regent until her eldest daughter grew to adulthood and assumed the throne. There was a rumor she would remarry and seek to put a son on the throne instead, that she would never permit her daughters to follow in the footsteps of their father and grandfather. She was a strong-willed, at times intractable woman, and she did not look back fondly on her marriage to Kellen Elessedil. With the war on the Prekkendorran ended, she was seeking ways to assure that madness of the sort he had displayed as King would never happen again. She would never achieve that goal, of course. Perhaps she knew that. But it did not stop her from trying.

Battered and disheartened by their defeat on the Prekkendorran, the Federation had withdrawn its armies, ceding to Callahorn and its people the lands to which it had laid claim during the war. After more than thirty years, the Southlanders had lost their taste for fighting a war that had netted them nothing. Sen Dunsidan was dead, and a new Prime Minister ruled the Coalition Council—a man who did not favor expansion as a goal and war as a means to an end. His people appeared to agree. There were those on both sides who believed that the war should be fought to the bitter end, those who would never accept any resolution short of victory on the battlefield, but they represented a small minority. A peace accord was swiftly brokered.

The threat presented by the deadly fire launcher was blunted, at least for the time being. As a condition to the peace she had brokered between the Federation and the Free-born, Grianne had won a single concession: There would be no further use of diapson crystals in the making of weapons. Diapson crystals would be used to power airships, and that would be all. The last fire launcher had been destroyed. The man who had invented it had disappeared and was believed dead, and his plans for building other weapons had been lost in a fire along with his models and designs. She had made certain of those things. She had assured herself that the matter was settled.

Her price for winning the agreement and assistance of all parties in enforcing covenants regarding the future use of diapson crystals was her promise to relinquish her place as head of the Druid order. Those who sought that did not know she had already made the decision to step down. It did not hurt to let them believe they had been responsible for persuading her. They were as frightened of her as they were of any weapon, and the bargain was easily struck.

She could not know if the bargain would be kept, but for the moment, at least, there was a fresh outlook in the governing bodies of the Races and a chance that common sense might prevail. Her successors would do their best to see that it did. Tagwen would serve as their adviser. Kermadec, who had re-formed the Druid Guard from among his own people, would see that they were protected. It was as much as anyone could hope for. It was the best she could do.

“Aunt Grianne?”