He paused. “Tonight, when we are finished here, I will go on to Paranor. The histories are well hidden to any but the Druids, so it is necessary that I go myself. But I believe that within their pages is recorded some mention of the name Safehold. From what is written there, we may hope to discover the location of the Bloodfire.”
He folded his hands on the table’s edge, and his eyes fixed on those of the King.
“Now as to the Chosen, Eventine, you are mistaken entirely. They are not all dead.”
For an instant, the room went deathly still. Amberle! Ander thought in astonishment. He means Amberle!
“All six were killed …!” Eventine began, then stopped abruptly.
“There were seven Chosen,” the Druid said quietly. “Seven.”
The King went rigid, his hands gripping the edges of the table until the knuckles were white. His eyes mirrored anger and disbelief.
“Amberle,” he breathed the name like a curse.
The Druid nodded. “She is one of the Chosen.”
“No!” The King was on his his feet, shouting. “No, Druid!”
There was a scurrying of footsteps in the hallway beyond and then a pounding on the study door. Ander realized what his father had done. His shouts had brought Dardan and Rhoe. Hurriedly, he went to the door and opened it. He was surprised to find not only the guards, but Gael as well. All peered curiously into the study, but the Elven Prince carefully blocked their view. Then his father was beside him.
“I told you to go home, Gael,” Eventine reprimanded the young Elf sternly. “Do so now.”
Gael bowed mechanically, his face showing the hurt he felt at the other man’s words, and disappeared back down the hallway without a word. The King nodded to the Elven Hunters, reassuring them that he was all right, and they returned to their watch.
The King stood silently in the open entry a moment, then closed the door. The penetrating blue eyes swept past his son to Allanon.
“How did you find out about Amberle?”
“When the Ellcrys spoke with me, she told me that seven had been chosen to serve. One was a young girl. Her name was Amberle Elessedil.”
The Druid paused, studying carefully the face of the Elven King. It was lined with bitterness. All of its color had drained away.
“It is unusual for a young woman to be selected as a Chosen,” Allanon continued calmly. “There have been no more than a handful, I think—not another in the last five hundred years.”
The King shook his head angrily. “Amberle’s selection was an honor that meant nothing to her. She spurned that honor. She shamed her people and her family. She is no longer one of the Chosen. She is no longer a citizen of this land. She is an outcast by her own choice!”
Allanon came to his feet swiftly, his face suddenly hard.
“She is your granddaughter, and you speak as a fool would.”
Eventine stiffened at the rebuke, but held his tongue. The Druid came up to him.
“Hear me. Amberle is a Chosen. It is true that she did not serve the Ellcrys as did the others. It is true that she forsook her duty as a Chosen. It is true that for reasons known only to herself she left Arborlon and the Westland, her home, despite the responsibilities that were clearly hers, that she disgraced her family and particularly you, as King, in the eyes of her people. It is true that she has made herself an outcast. It is true that she does not believe herself to be one of the Chosen any longer.
“But know this. It is not for you nor for her people to take from her what the Ellcrys has given. It is not even for her to do that. It is for the Ellcrys alone. Until the Ellcrys says differently, Amberle remains a Chosen in her service—a Chosen who may bear her seed in search of the Bloodfire, a Chosen who may give her new life.”
Allanon paused. “A King may not understand all things, Eventine Elessedil, even though he be a King. Some things you must simply accept.”
Eventine stared at the Druid without speaking, the anger gone now from his eyes, replaced with hurt and confusion.
“I was close to her once,” he said finally. “After her father—my son Aine—died, I became her father. She was still a child, only seven. In the evenings, we would play together …” He stopped, unable to continue. He took a deep breath to steady himself. “There was a quality about her that I have not since found; a sweetness, an innocence, a loving. I am an old man speaking these words about his grandchild, but I do not speak blindly. I knew her.”
Allanon said nothing. The King moved back to his chair and slowly seated himself once more.
“The histories record no other woman selected to serve as a Chosen since the time of Jerle Shannara. Amberle was the first—the first in more than five hundred years. It was an honor others would have given anything for.” He shook his head wonderingly. “Yet Amberle walked away from it. She gave no explanation—not to me, not to her mother, not to anyone. Not one word. She just left.”
He trailed off helplessly. Allanon sat down across from him again, his dark eyes intense.
“She must be brought back. She is the only hope that the Elven people have.”
“Father.” Ander spoke before he had time to think better of it. Impulsively he knelt next to the old man. “Father, on the night before he was killed, Lauren told me something. He told me that the Ellcrys had spoken with Amberle many times after her choosing. That had never happened before. Perhaps Amberle is our best hope.”
The King looked at him blankly, as if the words he had spoken meant nothing. Then he placed his hands flat against the worn surface of the reading table and nodded once.
“I find that hope a slim one, Ander. Our people may accept her back again, if only because they have need of her. I am not altogether certain of this; what she has done by her rejection is unpardonable in their eyes. And perhaps the Ellcrys, too, may accept her—accept her both as a Chosen and as the bearer of her seed. I don’t pretend to have answers to those questions. Nor do my own feelings matter in this.” He turned again to Allanon. “It is Amberle herself who will stand against us, Druid. When she left this land, she left it forever. She believed strongly that it must be so; something made her believe. You do not know her, as I do. She will never return.”
Allanon’s expression did not change. “That remains to be seen. We must at least ask her.”
“I do not know where she is.” The King’s voice turned suddenly bitter. “I doubt that anyone does.”
The Druid carefully poured a measure of the herb tea and handed it to the King.
“I do.”
Eventine stared at him wordlessly for a moment. His face clouded with conflicting emotions, and there were sudden tears in his eyes, tears that were gone as fast as they had come.
“I should have guessed,” he said finally. He rose, then stepped away from the table several paces, his face partially turned into the shadows. “You are free to act in this as you will, Allanon. You already know that.”
Allanon rose with him. Then, to Ander’s surprise, he said, “I will require the services of your son for a brief time before I leave.”
Eventine did not turn. “As you wish.”
“Remember—no one is to know that I have been here.”
The King nodded. “No one shall.”
A moment later the Druid was through the curtained windows and gone. Ander stood looking at his father hesitantly, then moved to follow.
He knew the old man’s thoughts now were of Amberle.
In the blackness of the Westland forests north of the Carolan, the Dagda Mor sat quietly, his eyes closed. When they opened again, they were bright with satisfaction. The Changeling had served him well. He rose slowly, the Staff of Power flaring sharply as his hands closed about its polished wood.
“Druid,” he hissed softly. “I know of you.”
He motioned to the formless shadow that was the Reaper, and the monster rose up out of the night. The Dagda Mor looked eastward. He would wait for the Druid at Paranor. But not alone. He could sense the
Druid’s power, and he was wary of it. The Reaper might be strong enough to stand against such power, but he had better use for the Reaper. No, other help would be necessary. He would bring a handful of the brethren through the eroding wall of the Forbidding.
Enough to snare the Druid. Enough to kill him.
6
Allanon was waiting for Ander when he stepped from the lighted study, and together they retraced their steps across the palace grounds and through the small side gate to the roadway beyond. Then Allanon asked to be taken to the stables. Wordlessly the two followed a back trail that took them through a small stretch of forest to the stable paddocks and from there to the stable entry. Ander dismissed the old stableman with a word of assurance, and Allanon and he stepped inside.
Oil lamps lit a double row of stalls, and the soft whicker of horses sounded in the stillness. Slowly Allanon passed down the line of stalls, eyes shifting from horse to horse as he walked to the end of the first row and started back up the second. Ander trailed after him and watched.
Finally the Druid stopped and turned back to Ander.
“That one,” he pointed. “I’ll need the use of him.”
Ander glanced uneasily at the horse Allanon had chosen. The horse was called Artaq, a huge coal-black stallion standing fully eighteen hands high. Artaq was big enough and strong enough to carry someone of Allanon’s size, and he could withstand a great deal of punishment. He was a hunting horse, built for stamina rather than for speed. Yet Ander knew him to be capable of great speed over short distances. His head was narrow and rather small, particularly when viewed in comparison to his great, barrel-chested body. He had eyes that were set rather wide and colored a startling azure. There was intelligence in those eyes; Artaq was not a horse that could be mastered by just any man.
Indeed, that was exactly the problem. Artaq was strong-willed and thoroughly unpredictable. He enjoyed playing games with his riders, games that usually ended with the riders being thrown. More than a few had been injured in those falls. If the man riding Artaq was not strong enough and quick enough to prevent it, Artaq would find a way to shake him off within seconds after he was mounted. Few men bothered to chance this. Even the King seldom rode him anymore, though once he had been a favorite.
“There are others …” Ander suggested hesitantly, but Allanon was already shaking his head no.
“This horse will do. What is his name?”
“Artaq,” the Elven Prince replied.
Allanon studied the horse carefully for a time, then lifted the stall latch and stepped inside. Ander moved over to watch. The Druid stood quietly before the big black, then lifted his hand in invitation. To Ander’s surprise, Artaq came over. Allanon stroked the satin neck slowly, gently, and he bent forward to whisper in the horse’s ear. Then he fitted a halter to the black and led him from his stall down the walkway to where the tack was stored. Ander shook his head and followed after. The Druid selected a saddle and bridle and strapped them snugly in place after removing the halter. With a final word of encouragement, he swung up upon the horse’s back.
Ander held his breath. Slowly Allanon walked the black down one row of stalls and back along the other. Artaq was obedient and responsive; there would be no games played with this man. Allanon brought him back to where Ander stood waiting and stepped down.
“While I am gone, Elven Prince,” he said, his black eyes fixed on Ander, “I entrust to you the care of your father. Be certain that no harm comes to him.” He paused. “I depend on you in this.”
Ander nodded, pleased that Allanon would show this kind of confidence in him. The Druid studied him a moment longer, then turned away. With the Elven Prince following once more, he walked Artaq to the rear of the stable and pushed ajar the wide double doors.
“Goodbye then, Ander Elessedil,” he offered and remounted. Easing Artaq through the open doors, he rode swiftly away into the darkness.
Ander watched after him until he was out of sight.
For the remainder of that night and for the better part of the three days that followed, Allanon rode Artaq eastward toward Paranor. His journey took him through the deep forests of the Westland to the mouth of the historic Valley of Rhenn and from there onto the sprawling emptiness of the Streleheim Plains. He traveled steadily, pausing only to rest, feed, and water Artaq, carefully keeping within covered areas of the land where possible, steering wide of caravan routes and well-traveled roadways. As yet, no one but the Elven King and his son knew that he had returned to the Four Lands. No one but they knew of the Druid histories at Paranor or of the seventh Chosen. If the evil that had broken through the Forbidding were to discover any of this, his quest would be seriously threatened. Secrecy was his greatest ally, and he intended that it might remain so.
At sunset on the second day of travel, he arrived at Paranor. He was certain that he had not been followed.
While still some distance from the ancient fortress, he left Artaq in a small grove of spruce where there was good grass and water and proceeded the rest of the way on foot. It was not as it had been in the time of the Warlock Lord. The packs of wolves that had prowled the surrounding forests were no more. The barrier of poison thorns that had walled away the Keep was gone. The woodlands were quiet and peaceful in the early evening dusk, filled with the pleasant sounds of nightfall.
Within minutes, he stood at the foot of the Druid’s Keep. The aged castle sat atop a great mass of rock, rising above the forest trees as if it had been thrust from out of the bowels of the earth by some giant’s hand. It was a breathtaking vision from a child’s fairy tale, a dazzling maze of towers and walls, spires and parapets, their weathered white stones etched starkly against the deep blue of the night sky.
Allanon paused. The history of Paranor was the history of the Druids, the history of his forebears. It began a thousand years after the Great Wars all but annihilated the race of Man and changed forever the face of the old world. It began after years of desolation and savagery as the survivors of the holocaust struggled to subsist in a lethal new world where man was no longer the dominant species. It began after the one race of Man became reborn into the new races of Men, Dwarves, Gnomes and Trolls—after the Elves reappeared. It began at Paranor, where the First Council of the Druids came together in a desperate effort to save the new world from total anarchy. Galaphile called them here—Galaphile, who was the greatest of the Druids. Here the histories of the old world, written and spoken, were set down in the Druid records, to be preserved for all the generations of man yet to come. Here the mysteries of the old sciences were explored, the fragments patched together, the secrets of a few restored to knowledge. For hundreds of years, the Druids lived and worked at Paranor, the wise men of the new world seeking to rebuild what had been lost.
But their efforts failed. One among them fell victim to ambition and ill-advised impatience, tampering with power so great and so evil that in the end it consumed him entirely. His name was Brona. In the First War of the Races, he led an army of Men against the other races, seeking to gain mastery over the Four Lands. The Druids crushed this insurrection and drove him into hiding. They believed him dead. But five hundred years later, he returned—Brona no longer, but the Warlock Lord. He trapped the unsuspecting Druids within their Keep and slaughtered them to a man—all save one. That one was Bremen, Allanon’s father. Bremen forged an enchanted Sword and gave it to the Elven King, Jerle Shannara, a talisman that the Warlock Lord could not stand against. It won for the Elves and their allies the Second War of the Races and drove the Warlock Lord again from the world of men.
When Bremen died, Allanon became the last of the Druids. He sealed the Keep forever. Paranor became history to the races, a monument of another time, a time of great men and still greater deeds.
The Druid shook his head. All that was past now; his concern must be only with the present.
He began to skirt the stone base of the castle, his eyes studying the deep crevices and jagged outcroppings. Finally he stopped, h
is hands reaching to the rock and touching. A portion of the stone swung inward, revealing a cleverly concealed passageway. The Druid slipped quickly through the narrow opening, and the stone sealed itself behind him.
There was total blackness within. Allanon’s hands searched until they found a cluster of wall torches set in iron brackets hammered into the rock. Lifting one free, he worked with the flint and stone he carried in a pouch at his waist until a spark ignited the pitch that coated the torch head. Holding the burning brand before him, he allowed his eyes a moment to adjust. A passage stretched away before him, the faint outline of rough-hewn steps cut into the rock floor disappearing upward into darkness. He began to climb. The smell of dust and stale air filled his nostrils, and he wrinkled his nose in distaste. The caverns were cold, their chill sealed in permanently by tons of rock. The Druid pulled his heavy cloak about him. Hundreds of steps passed beneath his feet, and still the tunnel twisted through the black.
It ended finally at a massive wooden door. Allanon paused and bent close, his eyes studying the heavy iron bindings. After a moment, his fingers touched a combination of metal studs, and the door swung open. He stepped through.
He stood in the furnace of the Keep. It was a round, cavernous chamber that consisted wholly of a narrow walkway encircling a great dark pit. A low iron railing rimmed the pit at its edge. About the walkway, a succession of wooden and ironbound doors were set into the chamber wall, all closed and barred.
The Druid moved to the railing and, holding the torch before him, peered downward into the pit. The faint illumination of the fire danced off blackened walls crusted over with ash and rust. The furnace was cold now, the machinery that once pumped heat to the towers and halls of the castle locked and silent. But far below, beyond the pale glimmer of the torchlight, beneath massive iron dampers, the natural fires of the earth still burned. Even now, their stirrings could be felt.