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 First King of Shannara (Book Excerpt)
by Terry Brooks
Buy from Amazon.comPage 2 of 5
"He is alive, Kinson. As alive as you and I. I tracked him to his
lair, deep in the shadow of the Knife Edge, where the Skull Kingdom puts
down its roots. I was not sure at first, as you know. I suspected it,
believed it to be so, but lacked evidence that could stand as proof. So I
traveled north as we had planned, across the plains and into the
mountains. I saw the winged hunters as I went, emerging only at night,
great birds of prey that patrolled and kept watch for living things. I
made myself as invisible as the air through which they flew. They saw me
and saw nothing. I kept myself shrouded in magic, but not of such
significance that they would notice it in the presence of their own. I
passed west of the Trolls, but found the whole of their land subdued. All
who resisted have been put to death. All who could manage to do so have
fled. The rest now serve him."
Kinson nodded. It had been six months since the Troll marauders had
swept down out of the Charnals east and begun a systematic subjugation of
their people. Their army was vast and swift, and in less than three months
all resistance was crushed. The Northland was placed under rule of the
conquering army's mysterious and still unknown leader. There were rumors
concerning his identity, but they remained unconfirmed. In truth, few even
knew he existed. No word of this army and its leader had penetrated
farther south than the border settlements of Varfleet and Tyrsis,
fledgling outposts for the Race of Man, though it had spread east and west
to the Dwarves and Elves. But the Dwarves and Elves were tied more closely
to the Trolls. Man was the outcast race, the more recent enemy of the
others. Memories of the First War of the Races still lingered, three
hundred and fifty years later. Man lived apart in his distant Southland
cities, the rabbit sent scurrying to earth, timid and toothless and of no
consequence in the greater scheme of things, food for predators and little
more.
But not me, Kinson thought darkly. Never me. I am no rabbit. I have
escaped that fate. I have become one of the hunters.
Bremen stirred, shifting his weight to make himself more comfortable.
"I went deep into the mountains, searching," he continued, lost again in
his tale. "The farther I went, the more convinced I became. The Skull
Bearers were everywhere. There were other beings as well, creatures
summoned out of the spirit world, dead things brought to life, evil given
form. I kept clear of them all, watchful and cautious. I knew that if I
was discovered my magic would probably not be enough to save me. The
darkness of this region was overwhelming. It was oppressive and tainted
with the smell and taste of death. I went into Skull Mountain finally--one
brief visit, for that was all I could chance. I slipped into the
passageways and found what I had been searching for."
He paused, his brow wrinkling. "And more, Kinson. Much more, and none
of it good."
"But he was there?" Kinson pressed anxiously, his hunter's face
intense, his eyes glittering.
"He was there," affirmed the Druid quietly. "Shrouded by his magic,
kept alive by his use of the Druid Sleep. He does not use it wisely,
Kinson. He thinks himself beyond the laws of nature. He does not see that
for all, however strong, there is a price to be paid for what is usurped
and enslaved. Or perhaps he simply doesn't care. He has fallen under the
sway of the Ildatch and cannot free himself in any case."
"The book of magic he stole out of Paranor?"
"Four hundred years ago. When he was simply Brona, a Druid, one of us,
and not yet the Warlock Lord."
Kinson Ravenlock knew the story. Bremen himself had told it to him,
though the history was familiar enough among the Races that he had already
heard it a hundred times. Galaphile, an Elf, had called together the First
Council of Druids five hundred years earlier, a thousand years following
the devastation of the Great Wars. The Council had met at Paranor, a
gathering of the wisest men and women of all the Races, those who had
memories of the old world, those who retained a few tattered, crumbling
books, those whose learning had survived the barbarism of a thousand
years. The Council had gathered in a last, desperate effort to bring the
Races out of the savagery that had consumed them and into a new and better
civilization. Working together, the Druids had begun the laborious task of
assembling their combined knowledge, of piecing together all that remained
so that it might be employed for a common good. The goal of the Druids was
to work for the betterment of all people, regardless of anything that had
gone before. They were Men, Gnomes, Dwarves, Elves, Trolls, and a
smattering of others, the best and wisest of the new Races risen from the
ashes of the old. If some small wisdom could be gleaned from the knowledge
they carried, there was a chance for everyone.
But the task proved a long and difficult one, and some among the
Druids grew restless. One was called Brona. Brilliant, ambitious, but
careless of his own safety, he began to experiment with magic. There had
been little in the old world, almost none since the decline of faerie and
the rise of Man. But Brona believed that it must be recovered and brought
back. The old sciences had failed, the destruction of the old world was
the direct result of that failure, and the Great Wars were a lesson that
the Druids seemed determined to ignore. Magic offered a new approach, and
the books that taught it were older and more tried than those of science.
Chief among those books was the Ildatch, a monstrous, deadly tome that had
survived every cataclysm since the dawn of civilization, protected by dark
spells, driven by secret needs. Brona saw within its ancient pages the
answers he had been seeking, the solutions to the problems the Druids
sought to solve. He resolved to have them. His course of action was set.
Others among the Druids warned him of the dangers, others not so
impetuous, not so heedless of the lessons history had taught. For there
had never been a form of power that did not evoke multiple consequences.
There had never been a sword that did not cut more than one way. Be
careful, they warned. Do not be reckless. But Brona and those few
followers who had attached themselves to him would not be dissuaded, and
in the end they broke with the Council. They disappeared, taking with them
the Ildatch, their map of the new world, their key to the doors they would
unlock.
Copyright © 1996 by Terry Brooks, all rights reserved. This information came directly from the official website of Terry Brooks at http://www.terrybrooks.net and is printed with their permission.
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