Terry Brooks - First King of Shannara

“I almost killed us,” she whispered. “You were right about me.”

“I was wrong,” he replied at once. “Had I come alone, had you not been with me, I would be dead. You saved my life. And you did so with your magic. Look at the ground on which you are standing, Mareth. Then look at yourself.”

She did as he asked. The ground was blackened and scorched, but she was untouched. “Don’t you see?” he asked softly. “The staff channeled your magic, just as Bremen said it would. It carried off the part that would threaten you and kept only what was needed. You have gained control of the magic at last.”

She looked at him steadily, and the sadness in her eyes was palpable. “It doesn’t matter anymore, Kinson. I don’t want control of the magic. I don’t want anything to do with it I am sick of it. I am sick of myself—of who I am, of where I came from, of who my parents were, of everything about me.”

“No,” he said quietly, holding her gaze.

“Yes. I wanted to believe that creature or I would not have been so mesmerized. If you hadn’t broken his hold on me, we would both be dead. I was useless. I am so caught up in this search to discover the truth about myself that I endanger everyone around me.”

Her mouth tightened. “My father, he called himself. A Skull Bearer. Lies this time, but maybe not the next. Perhaps it is true. Perhaps my father is a Skull Bearer. I don’t want to know. I don’t want anything more to do with magic and Druids and winged hunters and talismans.“ The tears had started again, and her voice was shaking. ”I am finished with this business. Let someone else go on with you. I quit.”

Kinson looked off into the darkness. “You can’t do that, Mareth,” he told her finally. “No, don’t say anything, just listen to me. You can’t because you are a better person than that. You have to go on. You are needed to help those who cannot help themselves. It isn’t a responsibility you went looking for, I realize. But there it is, your burden to bear, given to you because you are one of only a few who can shoulder it. You, Bremen, Risca, and Tay Trefenwyd—the last of the Druids. Just the four of you, because there is no one else, and perhaps there never will be.”

“I don’t care,” she murmured dully. “I don’t.”

“Yes, you do,” he insisted. “You all do. If you didn’t, the struggle with the Warlock Lord would have been finished long ago, and we would all be dead.”

They stood looking at each other in the ensuing silence, like statues left standing amid the ruins of the city.

“You are right,” she said finally, her voice so soft he could barely hear her. “I do care.”

She moved against him, lifted her face to his, and kissed him on the mouth. Her arms slipped around his waist and held him to her. Her kiss lasted a long time, and it was more than a kiss of friendship or gratitude. Kinson Ravenlock felt something grow warm deep inside that he hadn’t even known was there. He kissed Mareth back, his own arms coming about her.

When the kiss was finished, she stayed pressed against him for a moment, her head lowered into his chest. He could feel her heart heat He could hear her breathing. She stepped back and looked at him without speaking, her huge, dark eyes filled with wonder.

She bent down to pick up the fallen staff and began walking toward the woods again, following the Silver River east. Kinson stared after her until she was only a shadow, trying to make sense of things. Then he gave it up and hurried to catch her.

They walked for two days afterward and encountered no one.

All of the villages, farms, cottages, and trading centers that they passed were burned out and deserted. There were signs of the Northland army’s passage and of the Dwarves’ flight, but there were no people to be found. Birds flew across the skies, small animals darted through the undergrowth, insects hummed in the brambles, and fish swam in the waters of the Silver River, but no humans appeared. The man and the woman kept careful watch for any more of the Skull Bearers or any of the other myriad netherworld creatures that served the Warlock Lord, but none came.

They found food and water, but never in abundance and always in the wild. The days were slow and hot, the sticky swelter of the Anar cooled infrequently by passing rains. The nights were clear and deep, filled with stars and bright with moonlight. The world was peaceful and still and empty. It began to feel as if everyone, friend and foe alike, had vanished into the firmament.

Mareth did not speak again of her origins or of abandoning her quest. She did not mention her loathing of the magic or her fear of those who wielded it. She traveled mostly in silence, and when she did have something to say it concerned the country through which they passed and the creatures living there. She seemed to have put the events of Culhaven behind her. She seemed to have settled on staying with Kinson, though she gave her decision no voice. She smiled often in his direction. She sat close to him sometimes before sleeping. He found himself wishing more than once that she would kiss him again.

“I am not angry anymore,” she said at one point, her eyes directed ahead, carefully avoiding his. They were walking side by side across a meadow filled with yellow wildflowers. “I was angry for so long,” she continued after a moment. “At my mother, at my father, at Bremen, at the Druids, at everyone. Anger gave me strength, but now it only drains me. Now I’m simply tired.”

“I understand,” he replied. “I have been traveling for more than ten years—for as long as I can remember—always in search of something. Now I just want to stop and look around a little I want to have a home somewhere. Do you think that’s foolish?”

She smiled at his words, but she didn’t answer.

Late on their third day out of Culhaven, they reached the Ravenshorn. They were within its shadow and climbing into the foothills when the sun began to sink beneath the western horizon.

The sky was a wondrous rainbow of orange, crimson, and purple, the colors spilling everywhere, staining the earth below, reaching out to the darkening comers of the land. Kinson and Mareth had paused to look back at the spectacle when a solitary Dwarf appeared on the trail before them.

“Who are you?” he asked bluntly.

He was alone and bore only a heavy cudgel, but Kinson knew at once there would be others close at hand. He told the Dwarf their names. “We are searching for Risca,” he advised. “The Druid Bremen has sent us to find him.”

The Dwarf said nothing, but instead turned and beckoned for them to follow. They walked for several hours, the trail climbing through the foothills to the lower slopes of the mountains. Daylight faded, and the moon and stars came out to light their way The air cooled, and their breath puffed before them in small clouds. Kinson searched for signs of other Dwarves as they traveled, but he never saw more than the one.

At last they crossed into a valley where several dozen watch fires burned and ten times as many Dwarves huddled close abort them. The Dwarves looked up as the Southlanders came into view, and some rose from where they had been sitting. Then stares were hard and suspicious, and their words to each other were kept purposefully low. They carried few possessions, but every last one of them wore weapons strapped to his waist and back.

Kinson wondered suddenly if he and Mareth were in danger He moved closer to her, his eyes darting left and right. It did not feel safe. It felt ugly and threatening. He wondered if these Dwarves were renegades fled from the main army. He wondered if the army even existed anymore.

Then abruptly Risca was there, waiting for them as they approached, unchanged from the time they had left him at the Hadeshorn save for the new lacing of cuts that marked his face. And when a smile appeared on his weathered face and his hand stretched out in greeting, Kinson Ravenlock knew that everything was going to be all right.