Terry Brooks - First King of Shannara

The darkness was complete about them, the last of the daylight faded, and they sat cloaked within it, barely able to make each other out. Because they would cross the Rabb that night, Kinson had not bothered with a fire. Now he wished he had so that he could better see her face.

“I think,” he said slowly, “that this might be a good time for the truth. But how am I to know if what you tell me is the truth or simply another lie?”

She smiled faintly, sadly. “You will know.”

He held her gaze. “The lies were because of your magic, weren’t they?” he guessed.

“You are perceptive, Kinson Ravenlock,” she told him. “I like you for that. Yes, the lies were made necessary because of my magic. I am desperate to find a way to...” She hesitated, searching for the right word. “To live with myself. I have struggled with my power for too long, and I am growing weary and despairing. I have thought at times that I would end my life because of what it has done to me.”

She paused, looking off into the dark. “I have had the magic since birth. Innate magic, as I told Bremen. That much was the truth. I never knew my father. My mother died giving birth to me. I was raised by people I did not know. If I had relatives, they never revealed themselves. The people who raised me did so for reasons that I have never understood. They were hard, taciturn people, and they told me little. I think there was a sense of obligation, but they never explained it’s source. I was gone from them by the time I was twelve, apprenticed to a potter, sent to his shop to fetch and haul materials, to clean up, to observe if I wished, but mostly to do what I was told. I had the magic, of course, but like myself it had not yet matured and was still just a vague presence that manifested itself only in small ways.

“As I grew to womanhood, the magic blossomed within me. One day the potter tried to beat me, and I defended myself out of instinct, calling on the magic for protection. I nearly killed him. I left then, and went out into the border country to find a new place to live. For a time, I lived in Varfleet.“ Her smile returned. ”Perhaps we even crossed paths once upon a time. Or were you already gone? Gone, I suppose.“ She shrugged. ”I was attacked again a year later. There were several men this time, and they had more in mind than a beating. I called up the magic again. I could not control it. I killed two of them. I left Varfleet and went east.”

Her smile turned mocking and bitter. “You see a pattern to all this, I imagine. I began to believe I could live with no one because I could not trust myself. I drifted from community to community, from farm to farm, earning my way however I could. It was a useful time. I discovered new things about my magic. It was not merely destructive; it was also restorative. I was empathic, I found. I could apply the magic and bring healing to those who were injured. I discovered this by accident when a man I knew and liked was injured and in danger of dying from a fall. It was a revelation that gave me hope. The magic used in this way was controllable. I could not understand why, but it seemed governable when called upon to heal and not to destroy. Perhaps anger is inherently less manageable than sympathy. I don’t know.

“In any case, I went to live with the Stors, to ask to be allowed to study with them, to learn to use my skills. But they did not know me and would not accept me into their order. They are Gnomes, and no member of another race has ever been allowed to study with them. They refused to make an exception for me. I tried for months to persuade them otherwise, staying in their village, watching them at their work, taking meals with them when they would let me, asking for a chance and nothing more.

“Then one day a man came down out of the wilderness to visit with the Stors. He wanted something from them, something of their lore, and they did not seem concerned in the least about giving it to him. I marveled. After months of begging for scraps, I had been given nothing. Now this man appears out of nowhere, a Southlander, not a Gnome, and the Stors can’t wait to help him. I decided to ask him why.”

She scuffed her boot against the earth as if digging at the past.

“He was strange-looking, tall and thin, all angles and bones, pinch-faced and wild-haired. He seemed constantly distracted by his thoughts, as if it were the most difficult thing in the world to hold a simple conversation. But I made him speak with me. I made him listen to my story. It became clear as I went along that he understood a great deal about magic. So I told him everything. I confided in him. I don’t know why to this day, but I did. He told me the Stors would not have me, that there was no point in remaining in the village. Go to Paranor and the Druids, he suggested. I laughed. They would not have me either, I pointed out. But he said they would. He told me what to tell them. He helped me make up a story and he wrote the papers that would gain me acceptance. He said he knew something of the Druids, that he had been a Druid once, long ago. I was not to mention his name, though. He was not held in favor, he said.

“I asked his name then, and he told it to me. Cogline. He told me that the Druids were no longer what they once were. He told me that with the exception of Bremen they did not go out into the Four Lands as they once had. They would accept the story he had provided for me if I could demonstrate my healing talents. They would not bother to check further on me because they were trusting to a fault. He was right. I did as he told me, and the Druids took me in.”

She sighed. “But you see why I asked Bremen to take me with him, don’t you? The study of magic is not encouraged at Paranor, not in any meaningful way. Only a few, like Risca and Tay, have any real understanding of it. I was given no chance to discover how to control my own. If I had revealed its presence, I would have been sent away at once. The Druids are afraid of the magic. Were afraid rather, for now they are all gone.”

“Has your magic grown more powerful?” he asked as she paused. “Has it become more uncontrollable? Was it so when you called it up within the Keep?”

“Yes.” Her mouth tightened in a hard line, and there were sudden tears in her eyes. “You saw. It overwhelmed me completely. It was like a flood threatening to drown me. I could not breathe!”

“And so you look to Bremen to help you find a way to master it, the one Druid who might have an understanding of its power.”

She looked directly at him. “I do not apologize for what I have done.”

He gave her a long look. “I never thought for a minute that you would. Nor do I propose to judge you for your choice. I have not lived your life. But I think the lies should end here. I think you should tell to Bremen when we see him next what you have told to me. If you expect his help, you should at least be honest with him.”

She nodded, wiping irritably at her eyes. “I intend that,” she said. She looked small and vulnerable, but her voice was hard. She would give up nothing further of herself, he realized. She must have agonized over telling him as much as she had.

“I can be trusted,” she said suddenly, as if reading his mind.

“With everything but your magic,” he amended.

“No. Even with that. I can be trusted not to use it until Bremen tells me to.”

He studied her wordlessly for a moment, then nodded. “Fair enough.” He was thinking suddenly, unexpectedly, that they were much alike. Both had traveled far to leave the past behind, and for neither was the journey finished. Both had bound themselves to Bremen, their lives inextricably intertwined with his, and neither could envision now that there had ever been any other choice.

He glanced at the sky and climbed to his feet. “Time for us to be on our way.”