The Scions of Shannara

“It will burn off,” Morgan assured them, anxious to be off.

They shoved the skiff out onto the water, rowed until they found a breeze, and hoisted their makeshift sail. The clouds lifted a few feet and the skies brightened a shade, but the mist continued to cling to the surface of the lake like sheep’s wool and blanketed everything in an impenetrable haze. Noon came and went with little change, and finally even Morgan admitted he had no idea where they were.

By nightfall, they were still on the lake and the light was gone completely. The wind died and they sat unmoving in the stillness. They ate a little food, mostly because it was necessary and not so much because anyone was particularly hungry, then they took turns trying to sleep.

“Remember the stories about Shea Ohmsford and a thing that lived in the Mist Marsh?” Coll whispered to Par at one point. “I fully expect to discover firsthand whether or not they were true!”

The night crept by, filled with silence, blackness, and a sense of impending doom. But morning arrived without incident, the mist lifted, the skies brightened, and the friends found that they were safely in the middle of the lake pointing north. Relaxed now, they joked about their own and the others’ fears, turned the boat east again, and took turns rowing while they waited for a breeze to come up. After a time, the mist burned away altogether, the clouds broke up, and they caught sight of the south shore. A northeasterly breeze sprang up around noon, and they stowed the oars and set sail.

Time drifted, and the skiff sped east. Daylight was disappearing into nightfall when they finally reached the far shore and beached their craft in a wooded cove close to the mouth of the Silver River. They shoved the skiff into a reed-choked inlet, carefully secured it with stays, and began their walk inland. It was nearing sunset by now, and the skies turned a peculiar pinkish color as the fading light reflected off a new mix of low-hanging clouds and trailers of mist. It was still quiet in the forest, the night sounds waiting expectantly for the day to end before beginning their symphony. The river churned beside them sluggishly as they walked, choked with rainwater and debris. Shadows reached out to them, the trees seemed to draw closer together and the light faded. Before long, they were enveloped in darkness.

They talked briefly of the King of the Silver River.

“Gone like all the rest of the magic,” Par declared, picking his way carefully along the rain-slicked trail. They could see better this night, though not as well as they might have liked; the moon and stars were playing hide-and-seek with the clouds. “Gone like the Druids, the Elves—everything but the stories.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Morgan philosophized. “Travelers still claim they see him from time to time, an old man with a lantern, lending guidance and protection. They admit his reach is not what it was, though. He claims only the river and a small part of the land about it. The rest belongs to us.”

“The rest belongs to the Federation, like everything else!” Coll snorted.

Morgan kicked at a piece of deadwood and sent it spinning into the dark. “I know a man who claims to have spoken to the King of the Silver River—a drummer who sells fancy goods between the Highlands and the Anar. He comes through this country all the time, and he said that once he lost his way in the Battlemound and this old man appeared with his lantern and took him clear.” Morgan shook his head. “I never knew whether to believe the man or not. Drummers make better storytellers than truth-sayers.”

“I think he’s gone,” Par said, filled with a sense of sadness at his own certainty. “The magic doesn’t last when it isn’t practiced or believed in. The King of the Silver River hasn’t had the benefit of either. He’s just a story now, just another legend that no one but you and I and Coll and maybe a handful of others believe was ever real.”

“We Ohmsfords always believe,” Coll finished softly.

They walked on in silence, listening to the night sounds, following the trail as it wound eastward. They would not reach Culhaven that night, but they were not yet ready to stop either, so they simply kept on without bothering to discuss it. The woods thickened as they moved farther inland, deeper into the lower Anar, and the pathway narrowed as scrub began to inch closer from the darkness. The river turned angry as it passed through a series of rapids, and the land grew rough, a maze of gullies and hillocks peppered with stray boulders and stumps.