Terry Brooks - The Scions of Shannara

Par stared at him wordlessly.

“Would you listen to me now, Valeman? While you still can?”

Par shook his head, not in response to the question he had been asked, but in disbelief. “You are a Seeker,” he said finally. “You hunt those who use magic. Any use—even by you—is forbidden!”

Rimmer Dall smiled. “So the Federation has decreed. But has that stopped you from using your magic, Par? Or your uncle Walker Boh? Or anyone who possesses it? It is, in fact, a foolish decree, one that could never be enforced except against those who don’t care about it in the first place. The Federation dreams of conquest and empire-building, of uniting the lands and the Races under its rule. The Coalition Council schemes and plans, a remnant of a world that has already destroyed itself once in the wars of power. It thinks itself chosen to govern because the Councils of the Races are no more and the Druids gone. It sees the disappearance of the Elves as a blessing. It seizes the provinces of the Southland, threatens Callahorn until it submits, and destroys the wilful Dwarves simply because it can. It sees all this as evidence of its mandate to rule. It believes itself omniscient! In a final gesture of arrogance it outlaws magic! It doesn’t once bother asking what purpose magic serves in the scheme of things—it simply denies it!”

The dark figure hunched forward, the arms unfolding. “The fact of the matter is that the Federation is a collection of fools that understand nothing of what the magic means, Valeman. It was magic that brought our world to pass, the world in which we live, in which the Federation believes itself supreme. Magic creates everything, makes everything possible. And the Federation would dismiss such power as if it were meaningless?”

Rimmer Dall straightened, looming up against the strange light he had created, a dark form that seemed only vaguely human.

“Look at me, Par Ohmsford,” he whispered.

His body began to shimmer, then to separate. Par watched in horror as a dark shape rose up against the shadows and half-light, its eyes flaring with crimson fire.

“Do you see, Valeman?” Rimmer Dall’s disembodied voice whispered with a hiss of satisfaction. “I am the very thing the Federation would destroy, and they haven’t the faintest idea of it!”

The irony was wasted on Par, who saw nothing beyond the fact that he had placed himself in the worst possible danger. He shrank from the man who called himself Rimmer Dall, the creature who wasn’t in fact a man at all, but was a Shadowen. He edged backward, determined to flee. Then he remembered the Sword of Shannara, and abruptly, recklessly, changed his mind. If he could get to the Sword, he thought fiercely, he would have a weapon with which to destroy Rimmer Dall.

But the Shadowen seemed unconcerned. Slowly the dark shape settled back into Rimmer Dall’s body and the big man’s voice returned. “You have been lied to, Valeman. Repeatedly. You have been told that the Shadowen are evil things, that they are parasites who invade the bodies of men to subvert them to their cause. No, don’t bother to deny it or to ask how I know,” he said quickly, cutting short Par’s exclamation of surprise, “I know everything about you, about your journey to Culhaven, the Wilderun, the Hadeshorn, and beyond. I know of your meeting with the shade of Allanon. I know of the lies he told you. Lies, Par Ohmsford—and they begin with the Druids! They tell you what you must do if the Shadowen are to be destroyed, if the world is to be made safe again! You are to seek the Sword, Wren the Elves, and Walker Boh vanished Paranor—I know!”

The craggy face twisted in anger. “But listen now to what you were not told! The Shadowen are not an aberration that has come to pass in the absence of the Druids! We are their successors! We are what evolved out of the magic with their passing! And we are not monsters invading men, Valeman—we are men ourselves!”

Par shook his head to deny what he was hearing, but Rimmer Dall brought up his gloved hand quickly, pointing to the Valeman. “There is magic in men now as there was once magic in the creatures of fairie. In the Elves, before they took themselves away. In the Druids later.” His voice had gone soft and insistent. “I am a man like any other except that I possess the magic. Like you, Par. Somehow I inherited it over the generations of my family that lived before me in a world in which use of magic was commonplace. The magic scattered and seeded itself—not within the ground, but within the bodies of the men and women of the Races. It took hold and grew in some of us, and now we have the power that was once the province of the Druids alone.”

He nodded slowly, his eyes fixed on Par. “You have such power. You cannot deny it. Now you must understand the truth of what having that power means.”

He paused, waiting for Par to respond. But Par had gone cold to the bone as he sensed what was coming, and he could only howl silently in denial.

“I can see in your eyes that you understand,” Rimmer Dall said, his voice softer still. “It means, Par Ohmsford, that you are a Shadowen, too.”

Coll counted the seconds in his mind, stretching the process out for as long as he could, thinking as he numbered each that Par must surely appear. But there was no sign of his brother.

The Valeman shook his head in despair. He paced away from the craggy wall of the vault and back again. Five minutes was up. He couldn’t wait any longer. He had to go in. It frightened him that in doing so he would be leaving their backs unprotected, but he had no choice. He had to discover what had happened to Par.

He took a deep breath to steady himself as he prepared to enter.

That was when the hands seized him from behind and dragged him down.

“You’re lying!” Par shouted at Rimmer Dall, forgetting his fear, taking a step forward threateningly.

“There is nothing wrong with being a Shadowen,” the other answered sharply. “It is only a word that others have used to label something they don’t fully understand. If you can forget the lies you have been told and think of the possibilities, you will be better able to understand what I am telling you. Suppose for a moment that I am right. If the Shadowen are simply men who are meant to be successors to the Druids, then wielding the magic is not only their right, it is their responsibility. The magic is a trust—wasn’t that what Allanon told Brin Ohmsford when he died and marked her with his blood? The magic is a tool that must be used for the betterment of the Races and the Four Lands. What is so difficult to accept about that? The problem is not with myself or with you or with the others like us. The problem is with fools like those who govern the Federation and think that anything they cannot control must be suppressed! They see anyone different from themselves as an enemy!”

The strong face tightened. “But who is it that seeks domination over the Four Lands and its people? Who drives the Elves from the Westland, enslaves the Dwarves in the East, besieges the Trolls in the North, and claims all of the Four Lands as its own? Why is it, do you think, that the Four Lands begin to wither and die? Who causes that? You have seen the poor creatures who live in the Pit. Shadowen, you think them, don’t you? Well, they are—but their condition is brought about by their keepers. They are men like you and me. The Federation locks them away because they show evidence of possessing magic and are thought dangerous. They become what they are thought to be. They are starved of the life the magic could feed them and they grow mad! That child on Toffer Ridge—what happened to her that caused her to become what she is? She was starved of the magic she needed, of the use of it, and of everything that would have kept her sane. She was driven into exile. Valeman, it is the Federation that causes disruption in the Four Lands with its foolish, blind decrees and its crushing rule! It is the Shadowen who have a chance to set things right!