The Scions of Shannara

It was a nightmarish world where Par and Coll Ohmsford walked. The silence was intense and endless, a cloak of emptiness that stretched further than time itself. There were no sounds, no cries of birds or buzzings of insects, no small skitterings or scrapes, not even the rustle of the wind through the trees to give evidence of life. The trees rose skyward like statues of stone carved by some ancient civilization and left in mute testament to the futility of man’s works. They had a gray and wintry look to them, and even the leaves that should have softened and colored their bones bore the look of a scarecrow’s rags. Scrub brush and saw grass rubbed up against their trunks like stray children, and bramble bushes twisted together in a desperate effort to protect against life’s sorrows.

The mist was there as well, of course. The mist was there first, last, and always, a deep and pervasive sea of gray that shut everything vibrant away. It hung limp in the air, unmoving as it smothered trees and brush, rocks and earth, and life of any kind or sort, a screen that blocked away, the sun’s light and warmth. There was an inconsistency to it, for in some places it was thin and watery and merely gave a fuzzy appearance to what it sought to cloak, while in others it was as impenetrable as ink. It brushed at the skin with a cold, damp insistence that whispered of dead things.

Par and Coll moved slowly, cautiously through their waking dream, fighting back against the feeling that they had become disembodied. Their eyes darted from shadow to shadow, searching for movement, finding only stillness. The world they had entered seemed lifeless, as if the Shadowen they knew to be hidden there were not in fact there at all but were simply a lie of the dream that their senses could not reveal.

They moved quickly to the rubble of the Bridge of Sendic so that they could follow its broken trail to the vault. Their footsteps were soundless in the tall grasses and the damp, yielding earth. At times their boots disappeared entirely in the carpet of mist. Par glanced back to the door they had come through. It was nowhere to be seen.

In seconds, the cliff face itself, the whole of what remained of the palace of the Kings of Tyrsis, had vanished as well.

As if it had never been, Par thought darkly.

He felt cold and empty inside, but hot where sweat made the skin beneath his clothing feel prickly and damp. The emotions that churned inside would not be sorted out or dispersed; they screamed with voices that were garbled and confused, each desperate to be heard, each mindless. He could feel his heart pounding within his chest, his pulse racing in response, and he sensed the imminency of his own death with every step he took. He wished again that he could summon for just a moment the magic, even in its most rudimentary form, so that he could be reassured that he possessed some measure of power to defend himself. But use of the magic would alert whatever lived within the Pit, and he wanted to believe that as yet that had not happened.

Coll brushed his arm, pointing to where the earth had opened before them in a wicked-looking crack that disappeared into blackness. They would have to go around. Par nodded, leading the way. Coll’s presence was reassuring to him, as if the simple fact of his being there might somehow deter the evil that threatened. Coll—his large, blocky form like a rock at Par’s back, his rough face so determined that it seemed his strength of will alone would see them through. Par was glad beyond anything words could express that his brother had come. It was a selfish reaction, he knew, but an honest one. Coll’s courage in this business was to a large extent the source of his own.

They skirted the pitfall and worked their way back to the tumbled remains of the bridge. Everything about them was unchanged, silent and unmoving, empty of life.

But then something shimmered darkly in the mists ahead, a squarish shape that lifted out of the rubble.

Par took a deep steadying breath. It was the vault.

They moved toward it hurriedly, Par in the lead, Coll just a step behind. Stone-block walls came sharply into focus, losing the surreal haziness in which the mists had cloaked them. Brush grew up against its sides, vines looped over its sloped roof, andmoss colored its foundation in shadings of rust and dark green. The vault was larger than Par had imagined, a good fifty feet across and as much as twenty feet high at its peak. It had the look and feel of a crypt.

The Valemen reached its nearest wall and edged their way cautiously around the corner to the front. They found writing carved there in the pitted stone, an ancient scroll ravaged by time and weather, many of its words nearly erased. They stopped, breathless, and read:



Herein lies the heart and soul of the nations.

Their right to be free men,

Their desire to live in peace,

Their courage to seek out truth.

Herein lies the Sword of Shannara.