He hunched down closer to Shea in the dim firelight.
«Or would you have given up on yourself and the quest then and there? How much truth could you have withstood?»
«I don’t know,” Shea answered doubtfully.
«Then I will tell you something I could not tell you before. Jerle Shannara, five hundred years earlier, knew all these things — and still he failed.»
«But I thought…»
«That he was successful?» Allanon finished the thought. «Yet if he had been successful, would not the Warlock Lord have been destroyed? No, Shea, Jerle Shannara did not succeed. Bremen confided in the Elven King the secret of the Sword because he, too, thought that knowing how the talisman would be used might better prepare the bearer for a confrontation with Brona. It did not. Even though he had been forewarned that he would be exposed to the truth about himself, Jerle Shannara was not prepared for what he discovered. Indeed, there was probably no way that he could have adequately prepared himself beforehand. We build too many walls to a completely honest with ourselves. And I don’t think that he ever really believed Bremen’s warning about what would happen when he finally held the Sword. Jerle Shannara was a warrior king, and his natural instinct was to rely on the Sword as a physical weapon, even though he had been told that it would not help him in that way. When he confronted the Warlock Lord and the talisman began to work on him exactly as Bremen had warned, he panicked. His physical strength, his fighting prowess, his battle experience — all of it useless to him. It was just too much for him to accept. As a result, the Warlock Lord managed to escape him.»
Shea looked unconvinced.
«It might have been different with me.»
But the Druid did not seem to hear him.
«I would have been with you when you found the Sword of Shannara, and when the secret of the talisman revealed itself to you, I would have explained then its significance as a weapon against the Warlock Lord. But then I lost you in the Dragon’s Teeth, and it was only later that I realized you had found the Sword and gone northward without me. I came after you, but even so, I was almost too late. I could sense your panic when you discovered the secret of the Sword, and I knew the Warlock Lord could sense it as well. But I was still too far away to reach you in time. I tried to call out to you — to project my voice into your mind. There wasn’t time enough to tell you what to do; the Warlock Lord prevented that. A few words, that was all.»
He paused, almost as if he had gone into a trance, his dark gaze fixed on the air between them.
«But you discovered the answer on your own, Shea — and you survived.»
The Valeman looked away, reminded suddenly that, although he was alive; it seemed that everyone who had gone with him into the kingdom of the Skull was dead.
«It might have been different,” he repeated woodenly.
Allanon said nothing. At his feet, the small fire was dying slowly into reddish embers as the night closed about them. Shea picked up the bowl of soup and finished it quickly, feeling the drowsiness slip through him once more. He was nodding when Allanon stirred unexpectedly in the darkness and moved next to him.
«You believe me wrong in not telling you the secret of the Sword?» he murmured softly. It was more a statement of fact than a question. «Perhaps you are right. Perhaps it would have been better for everyone if I had revealed it all to you from the first.»
Shea looked up at him. The lean face was a mask of dark hollows and angular lines that seemed the wrappings of some perpetual enigma.
«No, you were right,” the Valeman replied slowly. «I’m not sure I could have handled the truth.»
Allanon’s head tilted slightly to one side, as if considering the possibility.
«I should have had more faith in you, Shea. But I was afraid.» He paused as a trace of doubt clouded the Valeman’s face. «You don’t believe me, but it’s true. To you, to the others as well, I have always been something more than human. It was necessary, or you would never have accepted your role as I gave it to you. But a Druid is still a human being, Shea. And you have forgotten something. Before he became the Warlock Lord, Brona was a Druid. Thus to some extent, at least, the Druids must bear responsibility for what he became. We permitted him to become the Warlock Lord. Our learning gave him the opportunity; our subsequent isolation from the rest of the world allowed him to evolve. The entire human race might have been enslaved or destroyed, and the guilt would have been ours. Twice the Druids had the opportunity to destroy him — and twice they failed to do so. I was the last of my Peoples — if I were to fail as well, then there would no one left to protect the races against this monstrous evil. Yes, I was afraid. One small mistake and I might have left Brona free forever.»
The Druid’s voice dropped to a whisper and he looked down for an instant.
«There is one more thing you should know. Bremen was more to me than simply my ancestor. He was my father.»
«Your father!» Shea came fully awake for an instant. «But that’s not poss…»
He trailed off, unable to finish. Allanon smiled faintly.
«There must have been times when you guessed that I was older than any normal man could be, surely. The Druids discovered the secret of longevity following the First War of the Races. But there is a price — a price that Brona refused to pay. There are many demands and disciplines required, Shea. It is no great gift. And for our waking time, we pile up a debt that must be paid by a special kind of sleep that restores us from our aging. There are many steps to true longevity, and some are not pleasant. Not one is easy. Brona searched for a way different from that of the Druids, a way that would not carry the same price, the same sacrifices; in the end, he found only illusion.»
The Druid seemed to retreat into himself for a long moment, then continued.
«Bremen was my father. He had a chance to end the menace of the Warlock Lord, but he made too many mistakes and Brona escaped him. His escape was my father’s responsibility — and if the Warlock Lord had succeeded in his plans, my father would have earned the blame. I lived with the fear of that happening until it was an obsession. I swore not to make the mistakes he had made. I’m afraid, Shea, that I never really had much faith in you. I feared you were too weak to do what had to be done, and I hid the truth to serve my own ends. In many ways, I was unfair to you. But you were my last chance to redeem my father, to purge my own sense of guilt for what he had done, and to erase forever the responsibility of the Druids for the creation of Brona.»
He hesitated and looked directly into Shea’s eyes. «I was wrong, Valeman. You were a better man than I gave you credit for being.»
Shea smiled and shook his head slowly.
«No, Allanon. You were the one who so often spoke to me of hindsight. Now heed your own words, historian.»
In the darkness across from him, the Druid returned the smile wistfully.
«I wish… I wish we had more time, Shea Ohmsford. Time to learn to know each other better. But I have a debt that must be paid… all too soon…»
He trailed off almost sadly, the lean face lowering into shadow. The puzzled Valeman waited a moment, thinking that he would say something more. He did not.
«In the morning, then.» Shea stretched wearily and burrowed deep into the cloak, warm and relaxed by the soup and the fire. «We’ve a long journey back to the Southland.»
Allanon did not reply immediately.
«Your friends are close now, looking for you,” he responded finally. «When they find you, will you relate to them all that I have told you?»
Shea barely heard him, his thoughts drifting to Shady Vale and the hope of going home again.
«You can do the job better than I,” he murmured sleepily.
There was another long moment of silence. At last he heard Allanon moving in the darkness beyond, and when the tall man spoke again, his voice sounded strangely distant.
«I may not be able to, Shea. I’m very tired — I’ve exhausted myself physically. For a time now, I must… sleep.»
«Tomorrow,” Shea mumbled. «Good night.»
The Druid’s voice came back a whisper.
«Good–bye, my young friend. Good–bye, Shea.»
But the Valeman was already sleeping.
