Терри Брукс - The Talismans of Shannara

Then its face lifted into the light, and Par Ohmsford felt the world fall away beneath him.

He was looking at Coll.

Ravaged, twisted, bruised, and dirtied, the face before him was still Coll’s.

For a moment, he thought he was going mad. He heard Damson’s gasp of disbelief, felt himself take an involuntary step backward, and watched his brother’s lips part in a twisted effort to speak.

“Par?” came the plea.

He gave a low, despairing cry, cut it short immediately, and with a supreme effort steadied himself. No. No, this had been tried once, tried and failed. This was not Coll. This was just a Shadowen pretending to be his brother, a trick to deceive him...

Why!

He groped for an answer. To drive him mad, of course. To make him... to force him to...

He clenched his teeth. Coll was dead! He had seen him die, destroyed in the fire of the wishsong’s magic—Coll, who had become one of them, a Shadowen, like this one...

Something whispered at the back of his mind, a warning that took no discernible form, words that lacked meaning beyond their intent. Caution, Valeman! Beware!

His hands still clenched the Sword of Shannara. Without thinking, still lost in the horror of what he was seeing, he brought the blade and scabbard up before him like a shield.

Instantly, the Shadowen was on him, closing the distance between them in the blink of an eye, moving far more swiftly than should have been possible for such a twisted body. It sprang into him, giving forth an anguished shriek, and Coll’s face rose up, large and terrifying, until it was right against his own and he could smell the stench of it. Gnarled hands closed about the handle of the Sword of Shannara and tried to wrench it free. Down the Valeman and the Shadowen went in a tangle of arms and legs. Par heard Damson cry out, and then he was rolling away from her, fighting for possession of the Sword. His hands shifted from the scabbard to the pommel, trying to gain leverage, to twist the blade free. He was face to face with his adversary as he fought. He could see into the depth of his brother’s eyes...

No! No, it wasn’t possible!

They tumbled into the trees, into grasses that whipped and sawed at their hands and faces. The scabbard to the Sword slid free, and now there was only the razor-sharp metal of the blade between them, jerking back and forth like a deadly pendulum as they struggled. Par became tangled in the folds of the strange, glimmering cloak, and the feel of it against his skin was repulsive, like the touch of something living. Thrashing wildly, he flung the trailing cloth away. He kicked out, and the Shadowen grunted as Par’s knee jammed into its body. But it would not let go, hands clasped about the blade in a death grip. Par was furious. The Shadowen seemed to have no purpose other than to hang onto the Sword. Its eyes were fixed on the blade. Its face was slack and empty. Par’s hands shifted to grasp what remained of the handle, coming tight against those of his adversary, feeling the rough, sweating skin. Their fingers intertwined as each sought to break the other’s grip, their bodies thrashing and twisting...

Par gasped. A tingling sensation entered his fingers and spread into his hands and arms. He jerked backward in surprise—felt the Shadowen jerk as well. A flush of warmth surged through him, an odd pulse of heat that was centered in the palms of his hands.

His eyes snapped down.

The blade of the Sword of Shannara had begun to give off a faint blue glow.

Par’s eyes widened. What was happening? Shades! Was it the magic? The magic of the Sword of—

The talisman flared sharply, and the blue light turned to white fire that blazed as bright as the midday sun. In its terrifying glow, he saw the face of the Shadowen change, the slackness disappearing as the features tightened in shock. Par wrenched wildly at the blade, but the Shadowen hung on.

From what seemed like a long way off, he heard Damson call his name once.

Then the Sword’s light was surging through him, the white fire flaring like blood down the limbs of his body, cool but insistent as it took possession. It surrounded him and then drew him away, outward from himself into the blade and then into the body of the Shadowen. He fought to resist the abduction, but found himself powerless. He entered the dark-cloaked figure, feeling the other shudder at the intrusion. Par tried to cry out and could not. He tried to break free and failed. Down into the Shadowen he went, raging and despairing all at once. The Shadowen was all around him, was there before him, eyes and mouth wide with disbelief, features contorted into something...

Someone...

Coll! Oh, it was Coll!

He might have whispered the words. He might have shrieked them aloud. He could not tell. There, in the dark center of his adversary’s soul, the lies fell away before the power of the Sword of Shannara and became the truth. This was no Shadowen he fought, no dark demon with his brother’s face, but his brother in fact. Coll, come back from the dead, come back to life, as real as the talisman they both clasped. Par saw the other shudder with some recognition of his own, realizing in the next instant that it was a recognition of what he had become. He saw his brother’s tears, heard his wail of despair, and saw him convulse as if stricken with poison. His brother’s mind shut down, too devastated by the revelation of what he had become to witness anything more. But Par saw the rest of it, all that his brother could not. He saw the truth of the cloak that wrapped Coll, a thing called the Mirrorshroud, Shadowen-made, stolen by his brother so that he could escape his imprisonment at South-watch. He saw Rimmer Dall smile darkly, looming above them both from within a vortex of images. But most terrible of all, he saw the madness that engulfed his brother, that drove him in search of Par, in search of the perceived cause of his pain, determined to put an end to both...

Then Coll thrashed uncontrollably and tore free, his hands releasing their grip on the Sword of Shannara. The images ceased instantly, the white fire dying. Par tumbled backward, his head striking the base of a tree with stunning force. Through a spinning dark haze he watched his brother, Shadowen-consumed, still wrapped within the hateful cloak, rise up like a netherworld specter. For an instant he crouched there, hands pressed against his hooded head as if to crush the images still locked within, shrieking against his madness. In the next he was gone, fled into the trees, crying as he went until the cries were just an echo in his horrified brother’s mind.

Damson was there then, helping Par to his feet, holding him up until she was sure he could stand alone. Her eyes were anxious and frightened, and he was conscious of the way she moved her body to shelter him. Soft streaks of morning light dappled their faces as they clung to each other. Together they stared out into the forest gloom, as if somehow they might catch a final glimpse of the creature who fled from them.

“It was Coll.” Par breathed the words as if they were anathema. “Damson, it was Coll!”

She stared at him in disbelief, not daring a reply.

“And this!” He brought up the Sword of Shannara, still clasped in his scraped, raw hands. “This is the Sword.”

“I know,” she whispered, more certain of this second declaration. “I saw.”

He shook his head, still trying to comprehend. “I don’t know what happened. Something triggered the magic. I don’t know what. But something. It was there, buried inside the Sword.” He wheeled to face her. “I couldn’t bring it out alone, but when both of us held the blade, when we struggled...” His fingers tightened on her arms. “I saw him, Damson—as clearly as I see you. It was Coll.”