Terry Brooks - The Sword of Shannara

«Maybe they’ll turn up later.»

Shea finished the bowl in silence, and Allanon refilled it without being asked. The warm liquid relaxed the still weary Valeman, and a numbing drowsiness began to seep slowly through his body. He was falling asleep again. It would have been so easy to give in to the feeling, but he could not. There were still too many things bothering him, too many unanswered questions. He wanted those answers now from the one man who could give them to him. He deserved that much after everything he had been through.

He struggled to a sitting position, aware that Allanon was watching him closely from out of the darkness beyond the little fire. In the distance, the sharp cry of a night bird broke through the deep silence. Shea paused in spite of himself. Life was coming back to the Northland — after so long. He placed the bowl of soup on the ground next, to him and turned to Allanon.

«Can we talk awhile?»

The Druid nodded silently.

«Why didn’t you tell me the truth about the Sword?» the Valeman asked softly. «Why didn’t you?»

«I told you all that you needed to know.» Allanon’s dark face was impassive. «The Sword itself told you the rest.»

Shea stared at him incredulously.

«It was necessary for you to learn the secret of the Sword of Shannara for yourself,” the Druid continued gently. «It was not something that I could explain to you — it was something that you had to experience. You had to learn to accept the truth about yourself first before the Sword could be of any use to you as a talisman against the Warlock Lord. It was a process in which I could not involve myself directly.»

«Well, could you not at least have told me why the Sword would destroy Brona?» Shea persisted.

«And what would that have done to you, Shea?»

The Valeman frowned. «I don’t understand.»

«If I had told you everything that it was in my power to tell you about the Sword — remembering now that you would not have the benefit of hindsight, as you do now, to enlighten you — would that have helped you in practical terms? Would you have been able to continue your search for the Sword? Would you have been able to draw the Sword against Brona, knowing that it would do no more than reveal to him the truth about himself? Would you have even believed me when I said that such a simple thing would destroy a monster with the power of the Warlock Lord?»

He hunched down closer to Shea in the dim firelight.

«Or would you have given up on yourself and the quest then and there? How much truth could you have withstood?»

«I don’t know,” Shea answered doubtfully.

«Then I will tell you something I could not tell you before. Jerle Shannara, five hundred years earlier, knew all these things — and still he failed.»

«But I thought…»

«That he was successful?» Allanon finished the thought. «Yet if he had been successful, would not the Warlock Lord have been destroyed? No, Shea, Jerle Shannara did not succeed. Bremen confided in the Elven King the secret of the Sword because he, too, thought that knowing how the talisman would be used might better prepare the bearer for a confrontation with Brona. It did not. Even though he had been forewarned that he would be exposed to the truth about himself, Jerle Shannara was not prepared for what he discovered. Indeed, there was probably no way that he could have adequately prepared himself beforehand. We build too many walls to a completely honest with ourselves. And I don’t think that he ever really believed Bremen’s warning about what would happen when he finally held the Sword. Jerle Shannara was a warrior king, and his natural instinct was to rely on the Sword as a physical weapon, even though he had been told that it would not help him in that way. When he confronted the Warlock Lord and the talisman began to work on him exactly as Bremen had warned, he panicked. His physical strength, his fighting prowess, his battle experience — all of it useless to him. It was just too much for him to accept. As a result, the Warlock Lord managed to escape him.»

Shea looked unconvinced.

«It might have been different with me.»

But the Druid did not seem to hear him.

«I would have been with you when you found the Sword of Shannara, and when the secret of the talisman revealed itself to you, I would have explained then its significance as a weapon against the Warlock Lord. But then I lost you in the Dragon’s Teeth, and it was only later that I realized you had found the Sword and gone northward without me. I came after you, but even so, I was almost too late. I could sense your panic when you discovered the secret of the Sword, and I knew the Warlock Lord could sense it as well. But I was still too far away to reach you in time. I tried to call out to you — to project my voice into your mind. There wasn’t time enough to tell you what to do; the Warlock Lord prevented that. A few words, that was all.»

He paused, almost as if he had gone into a trance, his dark gaze fixed on the air between them.

«But you discovered the answer on your own, Shea — and you survived.»

The Valeman looked away, reminded suddenly that, although he was alive; it seemed that everyone who had gone with him into the kingdom of the Skull was dead.

«It might have been different,” he repeated woodenly.

Allanon said nothing. At his feet, the small fire was dying slowly into reddish embers as the night closed about them. Shea picked up the bowl of soup and finished it quickly, feeling the drowsiness slip through him once more. He was nodding when Allanon stirred unexpectedly in the darkness and moved next to him.

«You believe me wrong in not telling you the secret of the Sword?» he murmured softly. It was more a statement of fact than a question. «Perhaps you are right. Perhaps it would have been better for everyone if I had revealed it all to you from the first.»

Shea looked up at him. The lean face was a mask of dark hollows and angular lines that seemed the wrappings of some perpetual enigma.

«No, you were right,” the Valeman replied slowly. «I’m not sure I could have handled the truth.»

Allanon’s head tilted slightly to one side, as if considering the possibility.

«I should have had more faith in you, Shea. But I was afraid.» He paused as a trace of doubt clouded the Valeman’s face. «You don’t believe me, but it’s true. To you, to the others as well, I have always been something more than human. It was necessary, or you would never have accepted your role as I gave it to you. But a Druid is still a human being, Shea. And you have forgotten something. Before he became the Warlock Lord, Brona was a Druid. Thus to some extent, at least, the Druids must bear responsibility for what he became. We permitted him to become the Warlock Lord. Our learning gave him the opportunity; our subsequent isolation from the rest of the world allowed him to evolve. The entire human race might have been enslaved or destroyed, and the guilt would have been ours. Twice the Druids had the opportunity to destroy him — and twice they failed to do so. I was the last of my Peoples — if I were to fail as well, then there would no one left to protect the races against this monstrous evil. Yes, I was afraid. One small mistake and I might have left Brona free forever.»

The Druid’s voice dropped to a whisper and he looked down for an instant.

«There is one more thing you should know. Bremen was more to me than simply my ancestor. He was my father.»

«Your father!» Shea came fully awake for an instant. «But that’s not poss…»

He trailed off, unable to finish. Allanon smiled faintly.

«There must have been times when you guessed that I was older than any normal man could be, surely. The Druids discovered the secret of longevity following the First War of the Races. But there is a price — a price that Brona refused to pay. There are many demands and disciplines required, Shea. It is no great gift. And for our waking time, we pile up a debt that must be paid by a special kind of sleep that restores us from our aging. There are many steps to true longevity, and some are not pleasant. Not one is easy. Brona searched for a way different from that of the Druids, a way that would not carry the same price, the same sacrifices; in the end, he found only illusion.»