The Talismans of Shannara

  Walker Boh was screaming at him, but he could no longer hear the words. Nor did he care to. He pressed on, moving steadily downward, I destroying everything that came into his path. Nothing could challenge him now. He sent the fire of the wishsong ahead and followed gleefully after.

  * * *

  Walker Boh thrashed awake again, body jerking, arms yanking free. His companions stepped back from him quickly. “He’s coming!” he hissed, his eyes snapping open. “But he’s losing himself in the magic!”

  They did not have to ask who he was talking about. “What do you mean?” Coll still gripped his cloak, and he pulled Walker about violently.

  Walker’s eyes were as hard as stone as they met the Valeman’s. “He has used the magic, but lost control of it. He’s using it on everything. Now, get back from me!”

  He shrugged free and wheeled away, put his hands on the stone door, and pushed. Light flared from his palms and streaked out of his fingertips into the seams of the massive portal, racing down through the cracks. Locks snapped apart and iron bars splintered. The time for stealth and caution was past. The doors shuddered and gave way with a crunch of metal.

  They were inside at once, moving into a blackness even more intense than the night, feeling cold and damp on their skin, breathing dust and staleness through their nostrils. It wasn’t age and disuse they found waiting, but a terrible foulness that spoke of something trapped and dying. They choked on it, and Walker sent light scurrying to the darkened corners of the room in which they stood. It was a massive entry to a series of halls that passed beneath a catwalk high above. Beyond, through an arched opening, stood an empty courtyard.

  Somewhere in the distant black, they could hear screams and smell burning and see the white flare, of Par’s magic.

  Rumor was already moving ahead, loping down the entry and through the opening to the courtyard. Walker and the others went after him, grim-faced and voiceless. Shadows moved at the fringes of the whirl of light and sound, but nothing attacked. They crossed the courtyard in a crouch, glancing left and right guardedly. The Shadowen were there, somewhere close. They reached the far side of the yard, still following the noises and flashes within, and pushed through into a hall.

  Before them, a stairway climbed into the dark tower, winding upward into a blackness now stabbed with the bright flare of magic’s white fire. Par was coming down. They stood frozen as he neared, unsure what they would find, uncertain what to do. They knew they had to reach him somehow, had to bring him back to himself, but they also knew—even Matty Roh, for whom the magic was something of an enigma—that this would not be easy, that what was happening to Par Ohmsford was harsh and terrifying and formidable. They spread out on Walker’s silent command. Morgan drew free the Sword of Leah and Coll the Sword of Shannara, their talismans against the dark things, and when Matty saw this she freed her slender fighting sword as well. Walker moved a step in front of them, thinking that this was his doing, that it was up to him to find a way to break through the armor that the magic of the wishsong had thrown up around Par, that it was his responsibility to help Par discover the truth about himself.

  And suddenly the Valeman came into view, gliding smoothly down the stairs, a phantom ablaze with the magic’s light, the power sparking at the ends of his fingers, across his face, in the depth of his eyes. He saw them and yet did not see them. He came on without slowing and without speaking. Above, there was chaos, but it had not yet begun to descend in pursuit. Par came on, still floating, still ephemeral, moving directly toward Walker and showing no signs of slowing.

  “Par Ohmsford!” Walker Boh called out.

  The Valeman came on.

  “Par, draw back the magic!”

  Par hesitated, seeing Walker for the first time or perhaps simply recognizing him, and slowed.

  “Par. Close the magic away. We don’t have—”

  Par sent a ribbon of fire whipping at Walker that threatened to strangle him. Walker’s own magic rose in defense, brushing the ribbon back, twisting it to smoke. Par stopped completely, and the two stood facing each other in the gloom.

  “Par, it’s me!” Coll called out from one side.

  His brother turned toward him, but there was no hint of recognition in his eyes. The magic of the wishsong hissed and sang in the air about him, snapping like a cloak caught in a wind. Morgan called out as well, pleading for him to listen, but Par didn’t even look at the Highlander. He was deep in the magic’s thrall now, so caught up in it that nothing else mattered and even the voices of his friends were unrecognizable. He turned from one to the other as they called to him, but the sound of their voices only served to cause the magic to draw tighter.

  We can’t bring him back, Walker was thinking in despair. He won’t respond to any of us. Already he could sense the pursuit beginning again, could feel the Shadowen drawing near down the connecting halls. Once Rimmer Dall reached them …

  And then suddenly Damson Rhee was moving forward, brushing past Walker before he could think to object, mounting the stairs and closing on Par. Par saw her coming and squared himself away to face her, the magic flaring wickedly at his fingertips. Damson approached without weapons or magic to aid her, arms lowered, hands spread open, head lifted. Walker thought momentarily to rush forward and yank her back again, but it was already too late.

  “Par,” she whispered as she came up to him, stopping when she was no more than a yard away. She was on a lower step and looking up, her red hair twisted back from her face, her eyes filling with tears. “I thought I would never see you again.”

  Par Ohmsford stared.

  “I am frightened I will lose you again, Par. To the magic. To your fear that it will betray you as it did when you believed Coll killed. Don’t leave me, Par.”

  A hint of recognition showing in the maddened eyes.

  “Come close to me, Par.”

  “Damson?” he whispered suddenly.

  “Yes,” she answered, smiling, the tears streaking her face now. “I love you, Par Ohmsford.”

  For a long moment he did not move, standing on the stairs in the gloom as if carved from stone while the magic raced down his limbs and about his body. Then he sobbed in response, something coming awake within him that had been sleeping before, and he squeezed his eyes shut in concentration. His body shook, convulsed, and the magic flared once and died away. His eyes opened again. “Damson,” he whispered, seeing her now, seeing them all, and swayed forward.

  She caught him as he fell, and instantly Walker was there, too, and then all of them, reaching for the Valeman and bringing him down into the hall, holding him upright, searching his ravaged face.

  “I can’t breathe anymore,” he whispered to them. “I can’t breathe.”

  Damson was holding him close, whispering back that it was all right, that he was safe now, that they would get him away. But Walker saw the truth in Par Ohmsford’s eyes. He was waging a battle with the wishsong’s magic that he was losing. Whatever was happening to him, he needed to confront it now, to be set free of the fears and doubts that had plagued him for weeks.

  “Coll,” he said quietly as they lowered Par to his knees and let him collapse against Damson. “Use the Sword of Shannara. Don’t wait any longer. Use it.”

  Coll stared back at the Dark Uncle uncertainly. “But I’m not sure what it will do.”

  Walker Boh’s voice turned as hard as iron. “Use the Sword, Coll. Use it, or we’re going to lose him!”

  Coll turned away quickly and knelt next to Par and Damson. He held the Sword of Shannara before him, both hands knotting on its handle. It was his talisman to use, but the consequences of that use his to bear.

  “Morgan, watch the stairs,” Walker Boh ordered. “Matty Roh, the halls.” He moved toward Par. “Damson, let him go.”

  Damson Rhee stared upward with stricken eyes. There was unexpected warmth in Walker’s gaze, a mix of reassurance and kindness. “Let him go, Damson,” he said gently. “Move away.”

  She rele
ased Par, and the Valeman slumped forward. Coll caught him, cradled him in his arms momentarily, then took his brother’s hands and placed them on the handle of the Sword beneath his own. “Walker,” he whispered beseechingly.

  “Use it!” the Dark Uncle hissed.

  Morgan glanced over uneasily. “I don’t like this, Walker …”

  But he was too late. Coll, persuaded by the strength of Walker Boh’s command, had summoned forth the magic. The Sword of Shannara flared to life, and the dark well of the Shadowen keep was flooded with light.

  Wrapped in a choking cloud of paralyzing indecision and devastating fear, Par Ohmsford felt the Sword’s magic penetrate like fire out of darkness, burning its way down into him. The magic of the wishsong rose to meet it, to block it, a white wall of determined silence. Protective doors flew closed within, locks turned, and the shivering of his soul rocked him back on his heels. He was aware, vaguely, that Coll had summoned the Sword’s magic, that the power to do so was somehow his where it had not been Par’s, and there was a sense of things being turned upside down. He retreated from the magic’s approach, unable to bear the truth it might bring, wanting only to hide away forever within himself.

  But the magic of the Sword of Shannara came this time with the weight of his brother’s voice behind it, pressing down within him. Listen, Par. Listen. Please, listen. The words eased their way past the wishsong’s defenses and gave entry to what followed. He thought it was Coll’s words alone at first that breached his defenses, that let in the white light. But then he saw it was something more. It was his own weary need to know once and for all the worst of what there was, to be free of the doubt and terror that not knowing brought. He had lived with it too long to live with it longer. His magic had shielded him from everything, but it could not do so when he no longer wished it. He was backed to the wall of his sanity, and he could not back away farther.

  He reached for his brother’s voice with his own, anxious and compelling. Tell me. Tell me everything.

  The wishsong spit and hissed like a cornered cat, but it was, after alt his to command still, his birthright and his heritage, and nothing it might do could withstand both reason and need. He had bent to its will when his fear and doubt had undermined him, but he had never broken completely, and now he would be free of his uncertainty forever.

  Coll, he pleaded. His brother was there, steadying him. Coll.

  Holding on to each other and to the Sword, they locked their fingers tight and slipped down into the magic’s light. There Coll soothed Par, reassuring him that the magic would heal and not harm, that whatever happened, he would not abandon his brother. The last of Par’s defenses gave way, the locks releasing, the doors opening, and the darkness dispelling. Shedding the last of the wishsong’s trappings, he gave himself over with a sigh.

  And then the truth began, a trickle of memories that grew quickly to a flood. All that was and had ever been in Par’s life, the secrets he had kept hidden even from himself, the shames and embarrassments, the failures and losses he had locked away, marched forth. They came parading into the light, and while Par shrank from them at first, the pain harsh and unending, his strength grew with each remembering, and the task of accepting what they meant and how they measured him as a man became bearable.

  The light shifted then, and he saw himself now, come in search of the Sword of Shannara at Allanon’s urging, anxious for the charge, eager to discover the truth about himself. But how eager, in fact? For what he found was that he might be the very thing he had committed against. What he found was Rimmer Dall waiting, telling him he was not who he thought, that he was someone else entirely, one of the dark things, one of the Shadowen. Only a word, Rimmer Dall had whispered, only a name. A Shadowen, with Shadowen magic to wield, with power no different than that of the red-eyed wraiths, able to be what they were, to do as they did.

  What he saw now, in the cool white light of the Sword’s truth, was that it was all true.

  One of them.

  He was one of them.

  He lurched away from the recognition, from the inescapability of what he was being shown, and he thought he might have screamed in horror but could not tell within the light. A Shadowen! He was a Shadowen! He felt Coll flinch from him. He felt his brother jerk away. But Coll did not let go. He kept holding him. It doesn’t matter what you are, you are my brother, he heard. No matter what. You are my brother. It kept Par from falling off the edge of sanity into madness. It kept him grounded in the face of his own terror, of his frightening discovery of self.

  And it let him see the rest of what the truth would reveal.

  He saw that his Elven blood and ancestry bound him to the Shadowen, who were Elven, too. Come from the same lineage, from the same history, they were bound as people are who share a similar past. But the choice to be something different was there as well. His ancestry was Shannara as well as Shadowen, and need not be what his magic might make him. His belief that he was predestined to be one of the dark things was the lie Rimmer Dall had planted within him, there within the vault that held the Sword of Shannara, there when he had come down into the Pit for the last time with Coll and Damson. It was Rimmer Dall who had let him try the Sword, knowing it would not work because his own magic would not let it, a barrier to a truth that might prove too unpleasant to accept. It was Rimmer Dall who had suggested he was Shadowen spawn, was one of them, was a vessel for their magic, giving him the uncertainty required to prevent the warring magics of Sword and wishsong from finding a common ground and thereby beginning the long spiral of doubt that would lead to Par’s final subversion when the possibility of what he might be grew so large that it became fact.

  Par gasped and reared back, seeing it now, seeing it all. Believe for long enough and it will come to pass. Believe it might be so, and it will be so. That was what he had done to himself, blanketed in magic too strong for anything to break down until he was willing to allow it, locked away by his fears and uncertainties from the truth. Rimmer Dall had known. Rimmer Dall had seen that Par would wrestle alone with the possibilities the First Seeker offered. Let him think he killed his brother with his magic. Let him think the Sword of Shannara’s magic could never be his. Let him think he was failing because of who he might be. As long as he unwittingly used the wishsong to keep the Sword’s magic at bay, what chance did he have to resolve the conflict of his identity? Par would be savior of the Druids and pawn of the Shadowen both, and the twist of the two would tear him apart.

  “But I do not have to be one of them,” he heard himself say. “I do not have to!”

  He shuddered with the weight of his words. Coll’s understanding smile warmed him like the sun. As it had been for his brother when the Sword’s truth tore away the dark lie of the Mirrorshroud, recognition became the pathway by which Par now came back to himself. Had Allanon known it would be like this? he wondered as he began to rise out of light. Had Allanon seen that this was the need for the Sword of Shannara?

  When the magic died away and his eyes opened, he was surprised to find that he was crying.

  XXXV

  Shadows and mist tangled and twisted down the length of the Valley of Rhenn, a sea of movement that rolled across the bodies of the dead and beckoned in grim invitation for the living to join them. Wren Elessedil stood at the head of the valley with the leaders of the army of the Elves and their newfound allies and pondered the lure of its call. From out of the corpses still strewn below, mostly Southlanders abandoned by their fellows, arms rose, cocked in death, signposts to the netherworld. The carnage spread south onto the flats until the dark swallowed it up, and it seemed to the Queen of the Elves that it might very well stretch away forever, a glimpse of a future waiting to claim her.

  She stood apart from the others—from Triss and Barsimmon Oridio, from the free-born leader Padishar Creel and his gruff friend Chandos, and from the enigmatic Troll commander Axhind. They all faced into the valley, as if each was considering the same puzzle, the mix of mist and shadows and
death. No one spoke. They had been standing there since news had arrived that the Federation was on the march once more. It was not yet dawn, the light still below the crest of the horizon east, the skies thick with clouds, the world a place of blackness.

  Despair ran deep in Wren. It ran to the bone and out again, and it seemed to have no end. She had thought she had cried her last when Garth had died, but the loss of Faun had brought the tears and the grief anew, and now she believed she might never be free of them again. She felt as if the skin had been stripped from her body and the blood beneath allowed to run, leaving her nerve endings exposed and raw. She felt as if the purpose of her life had evolved into a testing of her will and endurance. She was sick at heart and empty in her soul.

  “She was just a Squeak,” Stresa had hissed to her unconvincingly when he had found her toward midnight. She had told him of Faun’s death, but death was nothing new to Stresa. “They grow up to die, Wren of the Elves. Don’t trouble yourself about it.”

  The words were not meant to hurt, but she could not help challenging them. “You would not be so quick with your advice if I were grieving for you.”

  “Phhffft. One day you will.” The Splinterscat had shrugged. “It is the way of things. The Squeak died saving you. It was what she wanted.”

  “No one wants to die.” The words were bitter and harsh. “Not even a Tree Squeak.”