Terry Brooks - Terry Brooks - Paladins of Shannara - Allanon's Quest (Short Story)

There was something else, too, but it took a moment for Allanon to sort it out from the rest of the burden this man bore.

There was fear.

“What do you want?” Eldra Derrivanian snapped at him. Then he paused. “Wait. I know you. You’re the Druid Allanon.”

“We’ve never met.”

“No, but you were at the King’s court and before the High Council often enough. I know you, even if you paid no attention to me. Now get out of here.”

Allanon moved his foot swiftly to block the door. “First, you will hear me out. Once you’ve done that, I’ll go my way. But not before.”

Derrivanian stared at him balefully, then turned his back. “Do what you like. It means nothing to me.”

Allanon entered the room and closed the door behind him. He glanced around quickly. The room was small, sparsely furnished, and unkempt, and smelled unpleasant. Dishes were piled in a washbasin, and clothes were strewn about. He felt right away that something was wrong, but other than the obvious, he couldn’t decide what.

“Where is Collice?” he asked.

Derrivanian’s wife. The old man hesitated, then nodded toward a door at the back of the room. “Asleep. Sick. She tires easily these days. She goes to bed early. What is it that you want with me?”

Allanon moved over to the tiny kitchen table and sat, waiting. After a moment, Derrivanian sat down across from him. “I require your help,” the Druid said, leaning forward, elbows propped on the table, chin resting atop his folded hands, eyes fixed on the old man. “And I hope you will agree to give it after you’ve heard what I have to say.”

“My help to do what?”

“To think back in time and try to remember something for me. To use your exceptional mind to call up something that perhaps no one else can. And if that fails, to peruse your private records to jolt that memory.”

The old man rubbed at his face. He was unshaven, and his cheeks and forehead were deeply lined. His ears drooped with age, and his slanted brows were shaggy and gray. His salt-and-pepper hair was wild and stiff as he ran his fingers through it. “Whom do you seek?”

“Anyone who is an heir to the Elven house of Shannara.”

The other was silent for a long moment. “The Warlock Lord has returned, hasn’t he? The rumors are true.”

Allanon nodded. “He has returned, and he has brought his Skull Bearers with him. He is hunting down and killing all of the Shannara kin so that the Sword cannot be used against him again.”

“How many are dead so far? Wait. Don’t tell me. All of them, right? All that you can find, in any case. If you need my help, it must be as a last resort. How did you even find me?”

“An Elven Hunter searching for news of an heir saw you.”

Derrivanian shook his head. “I was hidden here for three years. No one knew. I found some small measure of peace. And now this.” He sighed. “I don’t have any love for the Elessedils. I don’t even have much love for the Elves, no matter if they’re my own people. None of them did anything for me when I needed their help. They let my son’s death go unpunished. They let his murderer go free. They tossed it all aside like it didn’t much matter.”

Allanon held his gaze. “This involves more than just Arborlon and the Elessedils. The survival of an entire world is at stake. I need you to put your anger aside.”

“Do you? Too bad. Why should I bother? Why should I care about the world or anything else?”

“Because you don’t want it on your conscience if everything goes wrong, and you could have done something to prevent it. Come, Derrivanian. You’re been a good and faithful steward for too many years to throw it all aside when it could mean so much to so many if you could help. Stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves.”

The old man rose and walked away, stopping to look out a window—perhaps contemplating what he saw, perhaps only gathering his thoughts. He was silent for a long time. Allanon let him be. Too many words of persuasion would have the wrong impact on this man. It would be better to let him come to the right decision on his own.

“You seem a strong man, Allanon,” he said finally. “Is that so? Are you as strong as they say?”

Allanon kept quiet, waiting.

“Because I’m not a strong man. I am a weakling and a coward. I’ve lost a son, and I don’t—” He stopped suddenly, shaking his head. “You don’t know what you will do until you are faced with a situation that tests you. You think you know, but you don’t.”

Still, the Druid waited. But he couldn’t help wondering as he did so what it was the man was trying to say.

Eldra Derrivanian turned back to him. “There is one last possibility, one last man who may have been overlooked by the Dark Lord. He is a distant relative, born to the son of a son of a cousin once removed from the direct line. His bloodline is true, though. He would have enough of the Shannara in him to serve your purpose. His name is Weir. Shall I tell you where he can be found?”

Allanon nodded slowly. “Tell me everything.”

Allanon departed the cottage shortly afterward, pulling his hood over his head and his cloak tightly about his shoulders, hunching down against the onslaught of rain. He had what he needed to find the man Derrivanian had named, including the location of the place where he could be found. Weir lived on a farm well outside any town or village, north of Emberen, close to the southwestern edge of the Kierlak Desert in country that was just barely Elven and in no way friendly. It was a day’s journey in good weather and more in bad. It was better traveled by horse than afoot, and so the Druid went back into Emberen to find a room in which to spend the night before seeking a mount for the morrow’s journey.

He was still troubled by his visit to Eldra Derrivanian. Something about it didn’t feel right. The man himself, the words he spoke, his actions—none of it. He realized suddenly that there had been a mattress in one corner of the front room, shoved off in a corner. Why was Derrivanian sleeping there when his wife slept in the back room? Or was the bedding for someone else? His wife’s sickness could account for the state of the cottage, but there was a furtiveness to him that was troubling.

On the other hand, this was a man whose life had been a shambles for many years, a man who had exiled himself from his people and his previous life and gone into the outback of Elven civilization. He had lost his son and his position and the respect of his King. He had become an object of scorn and pity and outright suspicion. Everything he had built his life around was gone. Perhaps it wasn’t so strange that there seemed to be no substance to him.

Allanon spent the night at a rooming house set apart from the taverns, and in the morning he procured a horse and set out. He rode north at a steady pace, through the forests, following a series of trails and paths toward the Streleheim. At midday, he passed onto the plains. The terrain changed abruptly, trees giving way to empty space and shade to heat. The rains had moved on, but the earth was left sodden and muddy, and the sun turned the standing pools to steam.

He let his horse meander across the uneven ground so that it could find decent footing, his thoughts straying to the task ahead. He was already thinking about what he would say to this man Weir to persuade him to take up the Sword in defense of his people. Over the past few weeks, he had composed dozens of arguments and hundreds of reasons for all those he had thought he would encounter in his long, fruitless search. In the end, he had needed none of them because there had been no one alive to persuade. If the same was true this time as well, he wasn’t certain where he would go next. Back to Derrivanian, perhaps. He wasn’t entirely satisfied that he had been given the truth.