The eyes shifted.
—Wren, child of hidden, forgotten lives, yours is a charge of equal importance. There can be no healing of the Lands or of their people without the Elves of faerie. Find them and return them to the world of men. Find them, Rover girl. Only then can the sickness end—
The Hadeshorn erupted with a booming cough.
—And Walker Boh, you of no belief, seek that belief—and the understanding necessary to sustain it. Search out the last of the curatives that is needed to give life back to the Lands. Search out disappeared Paranor and restore the Druids—
There was astonishment mirrored in the faces of all, and for an instant it smothered the shouts of disbelief that struggled to surface. Then everyone was yelling at once, the words tumbling over one another as each sought to make himself heard above the tumult. But the cries disappeared instantly as the shade’s arms came up in a sweep that caused the earth to rumble anew.
—Cease—
The waters of the Hadeshorn spit and hissed behind him as he faced them. It was growing lighter now in the east; dawn was threatening to break.
The shade’s voice was again a whisper.
—You would know more. I wish that it could be so. But I have told you what I can. I cannot tell you more. I lack the power in death that I possessed in life. I am permitted to see only bits and pieces of the world that was or the future that will be. I cannot find what is hidden from you for ham sealed away in a world where substance has small meaning. Each day, the memory of it slips further from me. I sense what is and what is possible; that must suffice. Therefore, pay heed to me. I cannot come with you. I cannot guide you. I cannot answer the questions you bring with you—not of magic or family or self-worth. All that you must do for yourselves. My time in the Four Lands is gone, children of Shannara. As it once was for Bremen, so it is now for me. I am not chained by shackles of failure as was he, but I am chained nevertheless. Death limits both time and being. I am the past. The future of the Four Lands belongs to you and to you alone—
“But you ask impossible things of us!” Wren snapped desperately.
“Worse! You ask things that should never be!” Walker raged. “Druids come again? Paranor restored?”
The shade’s reply came softly.
—I ask for what must be. You have the skills, the heart, the right, and the need to do what I have asked. Believe what I have told you. Do as I have said. Then will the Shadowen be destroyed—
Par felt his throat tighten in desperation. Allanon was beginning to fade.
“Where shall we look?” he cried out frantically. “Where do we begin our search? Allanon, you have to tell us!”
There was no answer. The shade withdrew further.
“No! You cannot go!” Walker Boh howled suddenly. The shade began to sink into the waters of the Hadeshorn. “Druid, I forbid it!” Walker screamed in fury, throwing off sparks of his own magic as he flung his arms out as if to hold the other back.
The whole of the valley seemed to explode in response, the earth shaking until rocks bounced and rattled ferociously, the air filling with a wind that whipped down out of the mountains as if summoned, the Hadeshorn churning in a maelstrom of rage, the dead crying out—and the shade of Allanon bursting into flame. The members of the little company were thrown flat as the forces about them collided, and everything was caught up in a whirlwind of light and sound.
At last it was still and dark again. They lifted their heads cautiously and looked about. The valley was empty of shades and spirits and all that accompanied them. The earth was at rest once more and the Hadeshorn a silent, placid stretch of luminescence that reflected the sun’s brilliant image from where it lifted out of the darkness in the east.
Par Ohmsford climbed slowly to his feet. He felt that he might have awakened from a dream.
XVI
When they recovered their composure, the members of the little company discovered that Cogline was missing. At first they thought such a thing impossible, certain that they must be mistaken, and they cast about for him expectantly, searching the lingering nighttime shadows. But the valley offered few places to hide, and the old man was nowhere to be found.
“Perhaps Allanon’s shade whisked him away,” Morgan suggested in an attempt to make a joke of it.
The Scions of Shannara
Terry Brooks's books
- Alanna The First Adventure
- Alone The Girl in the Box
- Asgoleth the Warrior
- Awakening the Fire
- Between the Lives
- Black Feathers
- Bless The Beauty
- By the Sword
- In the Arms of Stone Angels
- Knights The Eye of Divinity
- Knights The Hand of Tharnin
- Knights The Heart of Shadows
- Mind the Gap
- Omega The Girl in the Box
- On the Edge of Humanity
- The Alchemist in the Shadows
- Possessing the Grimstone
- The Steel Remains
- The 13th Horseman
- The Age Atomic
- The Alchemaster's Apprentice
- The Alchemy of Stone
- The Ambassador's Mission
- The Anvil of the World
- The Apothecary
- The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf
- The Bible Repairman and Other Stories
- The Black Lung Captain
- The Black Prism
- The Blue Door
- The Bone House
- The Book of Doom
- The Breaking
- The Cadet of Tildor
- The Cavalier
- The Circle (Hammer)
- The Claws of Evil
- The Concrete Grove
- The Conduit The Gryphon Series
- The Cry of the Icemark
- The Dark
- The Dark Rider
- The Dark Thorn
- The Dead of Winter
- The Devil's Kiss
- The Devil's Looking-Glass
- The Devil's Pay (Dogs of War)
- The Door to Lost Pages
- The Dress
- The Emperor of All Things
- The Emperors Knife
- The End of the World
- The Eternal War
- The Executioness
- The Exiled Blade (The Assassini)
- The Fate of the Dwarves
- The Fate of the Muse
- The Frozen Moon
- The Garden of Stones
- The Gate Thief
- The Gates
- The Ghoul Next Door
- The Gilded Age
- The Godling Chronicles The Shadow of God
- The Guest & The Change
- The Guidance
- The High-Wizard's Hunt
- The Holders
- The Honey Witch
- The House of Yeel
- The Lies of Locke Lamora
- The Living Curse
- The Living End
- The Magic Shop
- The Magicians of Night
- The Magnolia League
- The Marenon Chronicles Collection
- The Marquis (The 13th Floor)
- The Mermaid's Mirror
- The Merman and the Moon Forgotten
- The Original Sin
- The Pearl of the Soul of the World
- The People's Will
- The Prophecy (The Guardians)
- The Reaping
- The Rebel Prince
- The Reunited
- The Rithmatist
- The_River_Kings_Road
- The Rush (The Siren Series)
- The Savage Blue
- The Scar-Crow Men
- The Science of Discworld IV Judgement Da
- The Scourge (A.G. Henley)
- The Sentinel Mage
- The Serpent in the Stone
- The Serpent Sea
- The Shadow Cats
- The Slither Sisters
- The Song of Andiene