Terry Brooks - First King Of Shannara

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The

Tall

yaranor

The old man just appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.

The Borderman was watching for him, sitting well back

within the concealing shadows of a spreading hardwood

high on a hillside overlooking the whole of the Streleheim and the

trails leading out of it, everything clearly visible in the light of a

full moon for at least ten miles, and he still didn't see him. It was

unnerving and vaguely embarrassing, and the fact that it happened

this way every time didn't make it any more palatable. How did

the old man do it? The Borderman had spent almost the whole of

his life in this country, kept alive by his wits and experience. He

saw things that others did not even know were there. He could

read the movements of animals from their passage through tall

grass. He could tell you how far ahead of him they were and how

fast they were traveling. But he could not spy out the old man on

the clearest night and the broadest plain, even when he knew to

look for him.

It did not help matters that the old man easily found him.

Moving quite deliberately off the trail, he came toward the Bor-

derman with slow, measured strides, head lowered slightly, eyes

tilted up out of the shadow of his cowl. He wore black, like all the

Druids, cloaked and hooded, wrapped darker than the shadows

he passed through. He was not a big man, neither tall nor well

muscled, but he gave the impression of being hard and fixed of

purpose. His eyes, when visible, were vaguely green. But at times

they seemed as white as bone, too—now, especially, when night

stole away colors and reduced all things to shades of gray. They

gleamed like an animal's caught in a fragment of light—feral,

piercing, hypnotic. Light illuminated the old man's face as

4 First King of Shannara

well, carving out the deep lines that creased it from forehead to

chin, playing across the ridges and valleys of the ancient skin. The

old man's hair and beard were gray going fast toward white,

the strands wispy and thin like tangled spiderwebs.

The Borderman gave it up and climbed slowly to his feet. He

was tall, rangy, and broad-shouldered, his dark hair worn long and

tied back, his brown eyes sharp and steady, his lean face all planes

and angles, but handsome in a rough sort of way.

A smile crossed the old man's face as he came up. "How are

you, Kinson?" he greeted.

The familiar sound of his voice swept away Kinson Raven-

lock's irritation as if it were dust on the wind. "I am well,

Bremen," he answered, and held out his hand in response.

The old man took it and clasped it firmly in his own. The skin

was dry and rough with age, but the hand beneath was strong.

"How long have you been waiting?"

"Three weeks. Not as long as I had expected. I am surprised.

But then I am always surprised by you."

Bremen laughed. He had left the Borderman six months earlier

with instructions to meet him again on the first full moon of the

quarter season directly north of Paranor where the forests gave

Side 1

Terry Brooks - First King Of Shannara

way to the Plains of Streleheim. The time and place of the meeting

were set, but hardly written in stone. Both appreciated the uncer-

tainties the old man faced. Bremen had gone north into forbidden

country. The time and place of his return would be dictated by

events not yet known to either of them. It was nothing to Kinson

that he had been forced to wait three weeks. It could just as easily

have been three months.

The Druid looked at him with those piercing eyes, white now in

the moonlight, drained of any other color. "Have you learned

much in my absence? Have you put your time to good use?"

The Borderman shrugged. "Some of it. Sit down with me and

rest. Have you eaten?"

He gave the old man some bread and ale, and they sat hunched

close together in the dark, staring out across the broad sweep of

the plains. It was silent out there, empty and depthless and vast

beneath the night's moonlit dome. The old man chewed absently,

taking his time. The Borderman had built no fire that night or on

any other since he had begun his vigil. A fire was too dangerous to

chance.

"The Trolls move east," Kinson offered after a moment. "Thou-

First King of Shannara 5

sands of them, more than I could count accurately, though I went

down into their camp on the new moon several weeks back when

they were closer to where we sit. Their numbers grow as others

are sent to serve. They control everything from the Streleheim

north as far as I can determine." He paused. "Have you discovered

otherwise?"

The Druid shook his head. He had pushed back his cowl, and

his gray head was etched in moonlight. "No, all of it belongs now

to him."

Kinson gave him a sharp look. "Then..."

"What else have you seen?" the old man urged, ignoring him.

The Borderman took the aleskin and drank from it. "The

leaders of the army stay closed away in their tents. No one sees

them. The Trolls are afraid even to speak their names. This should

not be. Nothing frightens Rock Trolls. Except this, it seems."

He looked at the other. "But at night, sometimes, at watch for

you, I see strange shadows flit across the sky in the light of moon

and stars. Winged black things sweep across the void, hunting or

scouting or simply surveying what they have taken—I can't tell

and don't want to know. I feel them, though. Even now. They are

out there, circling. I feel their presence like an itch. No, not like an

itch—like a shiver, the sort that comes to you when you feel eyes

watching and the owner of those eyes has bad intentions. My skin

crawls. They do not see me; I know if they did I would be dead."

Bremen nodded. "Skull Bearers, bound in service to him."

"So he is alive?" Kinson could not help himself. "You know it

to be so? You have made certain?"

The Druid put aside the ale and bread and faced him squarely.

The eyes were distant and filled with dark memories.

"He is alive, Kinson. As alive as you and 1.1 tracked him to his

lair, deep in the shadow of the Knife Edge, where the Skull

Kingdom puts down its roots. I was not sure at first, as you know.

Side 2

Terry Brooks - First King Of Shannara

I suspected it, believed it to be so, but lacked evidence that could

stand as proof. So I traveled north as we had planned, across the

plains and into the mountains. I saw the winged hunters as I went,

emerging only at night, great birds of prey that patrolled and kept

watch for living things. I made myself as invisible as the air

through which they flew. They saw me and saw nothing. I kept

myself shrouded in magic, but not of such significance that they

would notice it in the presence of their own. I passed west of the

Trolls, but found the whole of their land subdued. All who resisted

6 First King of Shannara

have been put to death. All who could manage to do so have fled.

The rest now serve him."

Kinson nodded. It had been six months since the Troll

marauders had swept down out of the Chamals east and begun a

systematic subjugation of their people. Their army was vast and

swift, and in less than three months all resistance was crushed. The

Northland was placed under rule of the conquering army's myste-

rious and still unknown leader. There were rumors concerning his

identity, but they remained unconfirmed. In truth, few even knew

he existed. No word of this army and its leader had penetrated far-

ther south than the border settlements of Varfleet and Tyrsis,

fledgling outposts for the Race of Man, though it had spread east

and west to the Dwarves and Elves. But the Dwarves and Elves

were tied more closely to the Trolls. Man was the outcast race, the

more recent enemy of the others. Memories of the First War of the

Races still lingered, three hundred and fifty years later. Man lived

apart in his distant Southland cities, the rabbit sent scurrying to

earth, timid and toothless and of no consequence in the greater

scheme of things, food for predators and little more.

But not me, Kinson thought darkly. Never me. I am no rabbit. I

have escaped that fate. I have become one of the hunters.

Bremen stirred, shifting his weight to make himself more com-

fortable. "I went deep into the mountains, searching," he con-

tinued, lost again in his tale. "The farther I went, the more

convinced I became. The Skull Bearers were everywhere. There

were other beings as well, creatures summoned out of the spirit

world, dead things brought to life, evil given form. I kept clear of

them all, watchful and cautious. I knew that if I was discovered

my magic would probably not be enough to save me. The dark-

ness of this region was overwhelming. It was oppressive and

tainted with the smell and taste of death. I went into Skull Moun-

tain finally—one brief visit, for that was all I could chance. I

slipped into the passageways and found what I had been searching

for."

He paused, his brow wrinkling. "And more, Kinson. Much

more, and none of it good."

"But he was there?" Kinson pressed anxiously, his hunter's

face intense, his eyes glittering.

"He was there," affirmed the Druid quietly. "Shrouded by his

magic, kept alive by his use of the Druid Sleep. He does not use it

wisely, Kinson. He thinks himself beyond the laws of nature. He

First King of Shannara 7

does not see that for all, however strong, there is a price to be paid

for what is usurped and enslaved. Or perhaps he simply doesn't

care. He has fallen under the sway of the ndatch and cannot free

himself in any case."

"The book of magic he stole out of Paranor?"

Side 3

Terry Brooks - First King Of Shannara

"Pour hundred years ago. When he was simply Brona, a Druid,

one of us, and not yet the Warlock Lord."

Kinson Ravenlock knew the story. Bremen himself had told it

to him, though the history was familiar enough among the Races

that he had already heard it a hundred rimes. Galaphile, an Elf, had

called together the First Council of Druids five hundred years ear-

lier, a thousand years following the devastation of the Great Wars.

The Council had met at Paranor, a gathering of the wisest men and

women of all the Races, those who had memories of the old world,

those who retained a few tattered, crumbling books, those whose

learning had survived the barbarism of a thousand years. The

Council had gathered in a last, desperate effort to bring the Races

out of the savagery that had consumed them and into a new and

better civilization. Working together, the Druids had begun the

laborious task of assembling their combined knowledge, of

piecing together all that remained so that it might be employed for

a common good. The goal of the Druids was to work for the bet-

terment of all people, regardless of anything that had gone before.

They were Men, Gnomes, Dwarves, Elves, Trolls, and a smat-

tering of others, the best and wisest of the new Races risen from

the ashes of the old. If some small wisdom could be gleaned

from the knowledge they carried, there was a chance for everyone.

But the task proved a long and difficult one, and some among

the Druids grew restless. One was called Brona. Brilliant, ambi-

tious, but careless of his own safety, he began to experiment with

magic. There had been little in the old world, almost none since

the decline of faerie and the rise of Man. But Brona believed that

it must be recovered and brought back. The old sciences had

failed, the destruction of the old world was the direct result of that

failure, and the Great Wars were a lesson that the Druids seemed

determined to ignore. Magic offered a new approach, and the

books that taught it were older and more tried than those of sci-

ence. Chief among those books was the Ildatch, a monstrous,

deadly tome that had survived every cataclysm since the dawn of

civilization, protected by dark spells, driven by secret needs.

Brona saw within its ancient pages the answers he had been

8 First King ofShannara

seeking, the solutions to the problems the Druids sought to solve.

He resolved to have them. His course of action was set.

Others among the Druids warned him of the dangers, others not

so impetuous, not so heedless of the lessons history had taught.

For there had never been a form of power that did not evoke mul-

tiple consequences. There had never been a sword that did not cut

more than one way. Be careful, they warned. Do not be reckless.

But Brona and those few followers who had attached themselves

to him would not be dissuaded, and in the end they broke with the

Council. They disappeared, taking with them the Ildatch, their

map of the new world, their key to the doors they would unlock.

In the end, it led only to their subversion. They fell sway to its

power and became forever changed. They came to desire power

for its own sake and for their personal use. All else was forgotten,

all other goals abandoned. The First War of the Races was the

direct result. The Race of Man was the tool they employed, made

submissive to their will by the magic, shaped to become their

weapon of attack. But their effort failed in the face of the Druid

Council and the combined might of the other Races. The aggres-

sors were defeated, and the Race of Man was driven south into

exile and isolation. Brona and his followers disappeared. It was

said they had been destroyed by the magic.

"Such a fool," Bremen said suddenly. "The Druid Sleep kept

Side 4

Terry Brooks - First King Of Shannara

him alive, but it stole away his heart and soul and left him a shell.

All those years, we believed him dead. And dead he was, in a

sense. But the part that survived was the evil over which the magic

had gained dominance. It was the part that sought still to claim the

whole of the world and the things that lived within it. It was the

part that craved power over all. What matter the price that reckless

use of the Sleep demanded? What difference the changes exacted

for the extension of a life already wasted? Brona had evolved into

the Warlock Lord, and the Warlock Lord would survive at all

costs."

Kinson said nothing. It bothered him that Bremen could con-

demn so easily Brona's use of the Druid Sleep without ques-

tioning at the same time his own. For Bremen used the Sleep as

well. He would argue that he used it in a more balanced, controlled

way, that he was cautious of its demands on his body. He would

argue that it was necessary to employ the Sleep, that he did it so

that he would be there for the Warlock Lord's inevitable return.

But for all that he might try to draw distinctions, the fact remained

First King of Shannara 9

that the ultimate consequences of the use were the same, whether

you were Warlock Lord or Druid.

One day, it would catch up with him.

"Did you see him, then?" the Borderman asked, anxious to

move on. "Did you see his face?"

The old man smiled. "He has no face or body left, Kinson. He

is a presence wrapped in a hooded cloak. Like myself, I some-

times think, for I am little more these days."

"That isn't so," Kinson said at once.

"No," the other quickly agreed, "it isn't. I keep some sense of

right and wrong about me, and I am not yet a slave to the magic.

Though that is what you fear I will become, isn't it?"

Kinson did not answer. "Tell me how you managed to get so

close. How was it that you were not discovered?"

Bremen's eyes looked away, focusing on some distant place

and time. "It was not easy," he replied softly. "The cost was high."

He reached again for the aleskin and drank deeply, the weari-

ness mirrored in his face so heavy it might have been formed of

iron links dragging against his skin. "I was forced to make myself

appear one of them," he said after a moment. "I was required to

shroud myself in their thoughts and impulses, in the evil rooted

within their souls. I was cloaked in invisibility, so that my physical

presence did not register, and I was left only with my spirit

self. That I cloaked in the darkness that marks their own spirits,

reaching deep within myself for the blackest part of who I am. Oh,

I see you question that this was possible. Believe me, Kinson, the

potential for evil lodges deep in every man, myself included. We

restrain it better, keep it buried deeper, but it lives within us. I was

forced to bring it out of concealment in order to protect myself.

The feel of it, the rub of it against me, so close, so eager, was ter-

rible. But it served its purpose. It kept the Warlock Lord and his

minions from discovering me."

Kinson frowned. "But you were damaged."

"For a time. The walk back gafre me a chance to heal." The old

man smiled anew, a brief twist of his thin lips. "The trouble is that

once brought so far out of its cage, a man's evil is reluctant there-

Side 5

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Terry Brooks - First King Of ShannaraTheTallofyaranorThe old man just appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.The Borderman was watching for him, sitting well backwithin the concealing shadows of a spreading hardwoodhigh on a hillside overlooking the whole of the Streleheim and thetrails leading out of i...

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