Only brief minutes remained before the confrontation, and Allanon knew that he could never arrive in time to help. He had realized at last that Shea and the Sword of Shannara had somehow both gone northward. Leaving the others in Callahorn, he had rushed to the Valeman’s aid. But matters had developed too quickly. Now there was only one chance for him to be of any use to Shea—if, indeed, there was any real chance at all—and he was still too far away. Clutching his robes about his spare frame, the Druid moved swiftly down the hillside, scattering the dusty surface in small clouds as he went, his features tight with determination.
Panamon Creel started forward as Shea crumpled to one knee, but Keltset’s massive arm reached in front of him. The Troll was facing back toward the entrance to the caverns, listening. Panamon could hear nothing, but a sudden sensation of fear and growing horror reaching down inside him, halting his motion toward the Valeman. Keltset’s eyes turned, as if marking the progress of someone passing through the corridor beyond the cell, and Panamon felt his fear deepen.
Then a shadow fell over everything. The torchlight that outlined the tiny cavern room dimmed sharply. Standing at the doorway of the cell was a tall form shrouded in black robes. Instinctively, Panamon Creel knew that this was the Warlock Lord. Where a face should have been, beneath the closely drawn hood, there was nothing but darkness and a deep, green mist that moved sluggishly about twin sparks of reddish fire. The sparks turned first toward Panamon and Keltset, freezing them instantly into motionless statues, sending all the fears and terrors they had ever known rushing through their paralyzed forms. The thief struggled to cry a warning to the little Valeman, but he found that he could not speak, and he watched helplessly as the faceless cowl shifted slowly toward Shea.
The Valeman felt himself drift back into consciousness in the shadowed dampness of the little cell. Everything seemed strangely distant to him, though there was a vague warning signal sounding somewhere in the back of his clouded mind. But he responded sluggishly, and for a time there was only the musty smell of stale air and rock and the faint flickering of a single torch. Through a haze, he saw the motionless forms of Panamon and Keltset no more than five feet from him, fear mirrored in their hard features. Orl Fane crouched at the rear of the cell, twisted into a small yellow ball that whimpered and mumbled incoherently. Before him, the blade of the Sword of Shannara gleamed brightly.
Then instantly, the secret of the Sword came back to him—and with it, the helplessness of his situation. He started to lift his head, but his eyes seemed locked in front of him. Sudden fear and despair washed over him like a river of ice, and he felt himself drowning in it. He began to sweat coldly and his hands were shaking. A single thought screamed in his mind: Escape! Flee, before the fearsome creature whose forbidden kingdom he had dared invade should discover his presence and destroy him! The purpose for which he had risked everything no longer mattered; all that remained in his mind was the compelling need to flee.
He staggered erect. Every fiber of his being screamed at him to break and dash for the doorway, to throw down the Sword and run. But he could not do it. Something inside him refused to release the Sword. Desperately he fought to control his fear, his hands closing tightly about the handle of the Sword, gripping the metal until the knuckles turned white with pain. It was all that he had left, all that stood between himself and complete panic. He clung to it in desperation, his sanity held together by a talisman he knew to be useless.
MORTAL CREATURE, I AM HERE!
The words were a chilling echo in the deep silence. Shea’s eyes fought to look toward the doorway. At first he found only shadows; then the shadows tightened slowly, gathering together to form the cloaked figure of the Warlock Lord. It hovered menacingly at the chamber door, an impenetrable, dark, formless robe. From within the recesses of the cowl, the green mists swirled and the sparks of flame that were its eyes flashed and grew.
MORTAL CREATURE, I AM HERE. BOW DOWN BEFORE ME!
Shea turned white with fear. Something huge and black struck at his mind, and he balanced precariously on the thin edge of total panic. A bottomless chasm seemed to open before him. It would take only one small shove … He forced himself to concentrate on the Sword and his own desperate need to stay alive. A crimson haze slipped over his mind, bringing with it the voices of countless doomed creatures that cried for mercy without hope. Crawling, twisted things were clinging to his arms and legs, pulling at him, drawing him downward into the chasm. His courage turned to water. He was so small, so vulnerable. How could he resist a being as awesome as the Warlock Lord?
At the far side of the cell, Panamon Creel watched the black-robed figure draw nearer to Shea. The Warlock Lord seemed to be a thing of no substance, a faceless cowl, an empty robe. But he was obviously too much for Shea to handle alone, Sword or not. With a quick warning nod to Keltset, Panamon fought back against the sense of panic ripping at him and attacked, the piked arm coming up in a wicked sweep. Almost casually, the dark figure turned to him, now no longer seemingly empty, but filled with awesome power. An arm gestured, and the thief felt something ironlike grip his throat and hurl him back against the wall. He struggled once more to break free, but he was held fast and Keltset with him. Helplessly, they watched the Warlock Lord turn back toward the Valeman.
The struggle was almost over for Shea. He still held the Sword protectively before him, but the last of his resistance was breaking down before the assault of the Dark Lord. He could no longer think rationally. He was powerless against the emotions tearing him apart. From out of the darkness of the hood, a terrible command wrenched at him.
LAY DOWN THE SWORD, MORTAL CREATURE!
Desperately, Shea fought against the urge to obey. Everything became hazy and he struggled to breathe. Far back in his mind, a familiar voice seemed to be calling his name. He tried to answer, screaming inside himself for help. Then the voice of the Warlock Lord ripped at him again.
LAY DOWN THE SWORD!
The blade dipped slightly. Shea felt his mind begin to grow numb, and the darkness moved closer to him. The Sword was of no use to him. Why not discard it and be done? He was nothing to this awesome being. He was only a frail, insignificant mortal.
The Sword dipped farther. Orl Fane suddenly screamed in mindless terror and fell sobbing on the floor of the darkened cell. Panamon had gone white. Keltset’s massive form seemed pressed into the cell wall. The tip of the Sword of Shannara hovered just inches from the stone floor, wavering slowly.
Then the voice in Shea’s mind called out to him again. From out of nowhere, the words reached him in a whisper so faint that he could barely distinguish it.
“Shea! Have courage. Trust the Sword.”
Allanon!
The Druid’s voice pierced the fear and doubt that tightened about the Valeman. But it was so distant—so distant …
“Believe in the Sword, Shea. All else is illusion…”
Allanon’s words disappeared in a scream of rage from the Warlock Lord as the creature shut the hated Druid’s voice from the Valeman’s mind. But awareness came too late for Brona. Allanon had thrown a lifeline, and Shea clung to it, pulling himself back from the edge of defeat. The fear and doubt drew back. The Sword came up slightly.
The Warlock Lord seemed to move backward a step, and the faceless cowl turned slightly in the direction of Orl Fane. Instantly the whimpering Gnome came erect with the jerking motion of a wooden puppet. No longer his own master, the pawn of the Dark Lord surged forward, the gnarled yellow hands grasping desperately for the Sword. His fingers closed about the exposed blade and wrenched futilely at it. Then abruptly Orl Fane screamed as if in agony, jerking his hands free of the talisman. His features twisted as he dropped to the floor, and his hands groped at his eyes, covering them as if to shut out some horrible vision.
Again the Warlock Lord gestured. The trembling form struggled to its feet, and the Gnome flung himself back into the battle, shrieking his dismay. Again he seized the flashing blade. Again he scr
eamed in anguish and dropped to his knees, releasing the talisman a second time, his eyes streaming with tears.
Shea stared down at the crumpled form. He understood what was happening. Orl Fane had seen the truth about himself, just as Shea had done upon first touching the Sword. But for the Gnome, the truth was unbearable. Yet there was something strange in all this. Why had not Brona himself attempted to wrest the Sword away? It should have been a simple effort; instead, the Warlock Lord had first tried illusion to force Shea to release the Sword, then had used the already maddened Orl Fane as his cat’s-paw. Master of so much power, Brona yet seemed unable to grasp the Sword away? It should have been a simple effort; groped for the answer, so close now—then there was the first small glimmer of understanding.
Orl Fane was on his feet once more, still hopelessly obedient to the commands of the Warlock Lord. He came at Shea in maddened desperation, his gnarled fingers groping wildly at the air before him. The Valeman tried to avoid the rush, but Orl Fane was beyond reason, his mind gone, his soul no longer his own. With a shriek of fear and frustration, he threw himself against the Sword. For an instant, the wiry form convulsed about the bright metal as the Gnome held himself wrapped about the one thing that still mattered to him in this world. For an instant, it was his at last. Then he died.
Stunned, Shea backed away, pulling the weapon free from the lifeless body. Instantly, the Warlock Lord renewed his assault, thrusting viciously at the Valeman’s mind in an effort to crush all resistance. Brutal and direct, he employed no clever twists of doubt, no insinuation of uncertainty, no tricks of self-deception. There was only fear, overwhelming and devastating, hurled with the force of a sledgehammer blow. Visions swam through Shea’s mind—the awesome power of the Warlock Lord pictured in a thousand horrible ways, all directed toward his extermination. He felt himself reduced down to the smallest, least significant living thing that crawled upon the earth; in another second, it seemed, the Warlock Lord would grind the helpless human into dust.
But Shea’s courage held. He had almost succumbed to madness once, and this time he had to stand firm, to believe in himself and in Allanon. Both hands gripped the Sword as he forced himself to take one small step forward into the constricting haze, into the wall of fear assailing him. He tried to believe that it was only illusion, that the fear and growing panic he felt were not his own. The wall gave slightly, and he fought harder against it. He remembered the death of Orl Fane and built upon his memory a mental picture of all the others who must die should he fail them now. He remembered the whispered words of Allanon. And he concentrated on what he believed to be the Warlock Lord’s own weakness, revealed in his strange refusal to grasp the Sword. Shea forced himself to believe that the real secret of the talisman’s power was a simple law that affected even a creature as awesome as Brona.
The haze thinned suddenly and the wall of fear splintered. Shea stood again before the Warlock Lord, and the red sparks flashed, wildly now in the dim green mists beneath the cowl. The cloaked arms came up quickly as if to ward off some pressing danger, and the dark figure shrank from him. From the dimness of the far wall, Panamon Creel and Keltset suddenly broke free and came rushing forward, weapons drawn. Shea felt the last traces of the Warlock Lord’s resistance to his advance break apart and fade. Then the Sword of Shannara came down.
An eerie, soundless shriek of terror ripped from the convulsed shroud and a long, skeletal arm jerked wildly upward. The Valeman pressed the gleaming blade hard against the writhing form, forcing it back against the nearest wall. There would be no escape, he swore softly. There would be an end to the monstrous evil of this creature. Before him, the dark robes shuddered in response as the hooked fingers clawed painfully at the damp cell air. The Warlock Lord began to crumble; and he screamed his hatred of the thing destroying him. Behind his scream, the echo of a thousand other voices cried out for a vengeance that had been too long denied them.
Shea felt the horror of the creature rush through the Sword into his mind, but with it came strength from those other voices, and he did not relent. The touch of the Sword carried with it a truth that could not be denied by all the illusion and deceit of the Warlock Lord. It was a truth he could not admit, could not accept, could not abide—yet a truth against which he had no defense. For the Warlock Lord, the truth was death.
Brona’s mortal existence was only an illusion. Long ago, whatever means he had employed to extend his mortal life had failed him, and his body had died. Yet his obsessive conviction that he could not perish kept a part of him alive, and he sustained himself through the very sorcery that had driven him to madness. Denying his own death, he held his lifeless body together to achieve the immortality that had escaped him. A creature existing as a part of two worlds, his power seemed awesome. But now the Sword was forcing him to behold himself as he really was—a decayed, lifeless shell sustained only by a misconceived belief in his own reality—a sham, a fantasy created by force of will alone, as ephemeral as the physical being he had made himself appear. He was a lie that had existed and grown in the fears and doubts of mortal men, a lie that he had created to hide the truth. But now the lie was exposed.
Shea Ohmsford had been able to accept the weakness and frailty that were a part of his human nature, as it was a part of all men. But the Warlock Lord could never accept what the Sword revealed, because the truth was that the creature he had supposed himself to be had ceased to exist almost a thousand years before. All that remained of Brona was the lie; and now that, too, was taken from him by the power of the Sword.
He cried out a final time, a whimper of protest that echoed mournfully through the cell, blending with a rising shout of triumph from a chorus of other wraithlike cries. Then all sound ceased. The outstretched arm began to wither and turn to dust, falling from his shuddering form like ash as his body broke apart beneath the robes. The tiny glints of red glimmered once in the thinning green mist and disappeared. The cloak crumpled and sank emptily, falling to the floor in a pile, with the hooded cowl gradually collapsing, until only a worn tangle of cloth remained.
An instant later, Shea began to sway unsteadily. Too many emotions had chased themselves through his nerves and too much tension over too long a time were demanding their price from his overstrained body. The floor seemed to tilt beneath his feet, and he was falling slowly, slowly into darkness.
In the city of Tyrsis, the long, terrible struggle between earth-born mortal and spirit creature peaked with shocking suddenness. From deep within its rock-encrusted heart, the earth began to rumble, the tremors rippling to the scarred surface in steady, menacing shudders. On the low hills east of Tyrsis, the small band of Elven riders fought roughly to control their frightened mounts, and a haggard Flick Ohmsford stared in bewilderment as the land about him began to shake with the strange vibrations. Atop the Inner Wall, the giant, indestructible figure of Balinor repelled assault after assault as the Northland army sought vainly to breach the Southland defense, and for several minutes the tremors went entirely unnoticed in the ferocity of the battle. And on the Bridge of Sendic, the advancing Trolls halted and glanced uneasily about as the rumbling continued to build. Menion Leah started as long cracks appeared in the ancient stone, and the bridge defenders stood poised to run. The deep vibrations grew rapidly, building with frightening power into a titanic avalanche of booming shudders that swept through the earth and rock. The wind broke over the land with ferocious thrusts that bore down upon and scattered the Elven army still racing to relieve Tyrsis. From Culhaven in the Anar to the farthest reaches of the vast Westland, the great wind roared. Massive forest trees splintered and snapped, and ragged sections of mountains were torn free and crumbled into dust as the blistering force of wind and earthquake gripped the four lands. The sky had deepened into a solid black—cloudless, sunless, and empty, as if the heavens had been obliterated with the single stroke of a massive brush. Huge, jagged streaks of red lightning cut through the darkness, spanning the sky from horizon to horizon in an imposs
ible web of electrical energy. It was the end of the world. It was the end of all life. The holocaust promised since the beginning of the spoken word had finally arrived.
But a moment later it was over, dying instantly into complete and utter stillness. The silence hung shroud-like and complete, until from out of the impenetrable blackness the sound of wailing cries rose dismally, turning quickly into screams of anguish. In the city of Tyrsis, the battle was forgotten. Northlander and Southlander watched in horror as the Skull Bearers drifted skyward like formless wraiths, writhing in unspeakable agony, their hooked limbs twisting as they screamed. They hovered momentarily in full view of the men below, who blanched in horror but could not turn away. Then the winged forms began to disintegrate, their dark bodies breaking slowly into ashes and drifting earthward. Seconds later nothing remained but the vast, empty blackness, which began to move in a huge, rushing sweep that carried it northward, pulling in its borders as if they were the ends of a blanket. To the south first, and then the east and west, blue sky shot into view and the sun swept across the lands with dazzling brightness. In awe, mortal men watched the impossible darkness fold into a single black cloud far to the north, hover motionlessly above the horizon, and then sink downward into the earth and disappear forever.
* * *
Time drifted away as Shea floated senselessly in a vast, black, empty void.
“I don’t think he made it.”
A voice reached into his mind from somewhere far, far away. His hands and face felt the sudden chill of smooth stone against his heated skin.
“Wait a minute, his eyes are blinking. I think he’s coming around!”
Panamon Creel. Shea’s eyes opened and he found himself lying on the floor in the little cell, yellowish torchlight flickering through the darkness in a hazy glow. He was himself again. One hand still clenched the Sword of Shannara, but the power of the talisman had left him, and the strange bond that had briefly joined them together was gone. He stumbled awkwardly to his hands and knees, but a deep, ominous rumbling shook the cavern and he pitched forward. Strong hands reached out to grab him as he fell.