it to the Elven King Jerle Shannara. With that Sword, the King would face in battle the rebel Druid and see him destroyed.
«As you know, however, Jerle Shannara failed. Unable fully to master the power of the Sword, he let the Warlock Lord escape. Though the battle was won and the armies of the evil one driven forth, still Brona lived. Years would pass before he could return, but return he would. Bremen knew that he would not be there to face Brona again. Yet his pledge had been given, and Bremen would never forsake a promise‘’
The Druid’s voice had slipped down to a whisper, and there was a look of intense pain within the black, impenetrable eyes. «He did three things, then. He chose me to be his son, the flesh and blood offspring of the Druid line who would walk upon the Four Lands until the time of the Dark Lord’s return. He gave added life to himself first and to me later through the sleep that preserves so that, for as long as might be necessary, a Druid would stand as protector of mankind against the Warlock Lord. And finally, he did one thing more. When the time of his passing was at hand and he could not make himself let go, he used the magic in one last, terrible evocation. He bound his spirit to this world in which his body could not stay; so that he could reach beyond life’s end to see fulfillment of the pledge that he had made.»
Gnarled hands tightened into fists. «He bound himself, spirit out of flesh, to me! He used the magic to achieve that binding, father to son, his spirit exiled in a world of dark where past and future joined, where summons could be had when the need was there. That was what he chose for himself, a lost and hopeless being, never to be freed until it was done, until both had passed…»
He stopped suddenly, as if his words had brought him farther than he wished to go. In that instant, Brin caught sight of what had been hidden from her before — a quick, elusive glimpse of the secret that the Druid had withheld from her in the Valley of Shale when Bremen had risen from the Hadeshorn and spoken of what was to be, and which gave substance to the whisperings of her premonition.
«I thought it done once,” Allanon went on, brushing past the sudden pause. «I thought it done when Shea Ohmsford destroyed the Warlock Lord — when the Valeman unlocked the secret of the Sword of Shannara and made himself its master. But I was wrong. The dark magic did not die with the Warlock Lord. Nor was it locked away again as Bremen had foresworn it must be. It survived, kept safe within the pages of the Ildatch, secreted away within the bowels of the Maelmord to await new discoverers. And, finally, the discoverers came.»
«And became the Mord Wraiths,” Rone Leah finished.
«Made slaves to the dark magic as had been the Warlock Lord and the Skull Bearers in old days. Thinking to be master, they became only slaves.»
But what is the secret that you hide? Brin whispered in her mind, still waiting to hear it told. Speak now of that!
«Then Bremen cannot be freed from his exile within the Hadeshorn until the book of the Ildatch is destroyed — and the magic with it?» Rone was too caught up in the history of the tale to see what Brin saw.
«He is pledged to that destruction, Prince of Leah,” Allanon whispered.
And you. And you. Brin’s mind raced.
«All of the dark magic gone from the land?» Rone shook his head wonderingly. «It does not seem possible. Not after so many years of its being — of wars fought because of it, of lives expended.»
The Druid looked away. «That age ends, highlander. That age must pass.»
There was a long silence then, a hushed stillness that filled the night shadows about the flame of the oil lamp and crowded close about the three who huddled there. Wrapped by it, they thought their separate. thoughts, eyes slipping past one another’s faces to shield what whispered within. Strangers joined in common cause but without understanding, thought Brin. We strive for a common good, yet the bond is curiously weak…
«Can we succeed in this, Allanon?» Rone Leah asked suddenly. His wind–burned face turned toward the Druid. «Have we strength enough to destroy this book and its dark magic?»
The Druid did not answer for a moment. His eyes flickered with hidden knowledge, elusive and quick. Then he said quietly, «Brin Ohmsford has the strength. She is our hope.»
Brin looked at him and shook her head slowly. Her smile twisted with irony. «Hope and no hope. Savior and destroyer. Remember the words, Allanon? Your father spoke them of me.»
Allanon said nothing. He simply sat there, dark eyes staring into her own.
«What else did he tell you, Allanon?» she asked him quietly. «What else?»
There was a long pause. «That I shall not see him again in this world.»
The silence deepened. She was close now to the secret the Druid kept hidden, she realized. Rone Leah stirred uneasily in his chair, eyes shifting to find those of the Valegirl. There was uncertainty in those eyes, Brin saw. Rone did not want to know any more. She looked away. It was she who was the hope, and she who must know.
«Was there more?» she said.
Slowly Allanon straightened, dark robes wrapping close about him, and on his worn and haggard face, a small smile appeared. «There is an Ohmsford obsession with knowing the truth of all that is,” he replied. «Not a one of you has ever been content with less.»
«What did Bremen say?» she pressed.
The smile died away. «He said, Brin Ohmsford, that when I go from the Four Lands this time, I shall not come again.»
Valegirl and highlander stared at him in shocked disbelief. As certain as the cycle of the seasons was the return of Allanon to the Four Lands when the danger of the dark magic threatened the races. There had never been a time in memory when he had not come.
«I don’t believe you, Druid!» Rone insisted heatedly, unable to think of anything else to say, a trace of outrage in his voice.
Allanon shook his head slowly. «The age passes, Prince of Leah. I must pass with it.»
Brin swallowed against the tightness in her throat. «When… when will you… ?»
«When I must, Brin,” the Druid finished gently. «When it is time.»
Then he rose, a tall and weathered form as black as night and as steady as its coming. The great, gnarled hands reached out across the table. Without fully understanding why, the Valegirl and the highlander reached to clasp them in their own, joining for just an instant the three as one.
The Druid’s nod was brief and somehow final. «Tomorrow we ride east into the Anar — east until our journey is done. Go now and sleep. Be at peace.»
The great hands released their own and dropped away. «Go,” he said softly.
With a quick, uncertain glance at each other, Brin and Rone stood up and walked from the room. All the way out, they could feel the dark gaze following after.
They walked in silence down the hallway beyond. The sound of voices, distant and fragmented, wafted through the shadows of the empty hall and drifted disembodied from some unseen place. The air was thick with the smell of herbs and medicines, and they breathed in the aromas, distracted from their thoughts. When they reached the doors to their sleeping rooms, they stopped and stood together, not touching or looking at each other, sharing without speaking the impact of what they had been told.
It cannot be true, Brin thought, stunned. It cannot.
Rone turned to face her then, and his hands reached down to take hers. For the first time since their departure from Hadeshorn and the Valley of Shale, she felt close to him again.
«What he told us, Brin… what he said about not returning…» The highlander shook his head. «That was the reason we went to Paranor and he sealed away the Keep. He knew he would not be coming back…»
«Rone,” she said quickly and put her finger to his lips.
«I know. It’s just that I cannot believe it.»
«No.»
For a long moment they stared at each other. «I am afraid, Brin,” he said finally, his voice a whisper.
She nodded without speaking, then wrapped her arms about him and held him close. Then she stepped back again, kissed him lightly on the mouth and disappeared into her room.
Slowly, wearily Allanon turned from the closed door and seated himself once more at the small table. Eyes shifting from the flame of the oil lamp, he stared fixedly into the shadows beyond, his thoughts drifting. Once he would not have felt the need to reveal the secrets that were his. He would have disdained to do so. He was the keeper of the trust, after all; he was the last of the Druids and the power that had once been theirs belonged now
