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 First King of Shannara (Book Excerpt)
by Terry Brooks
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In the end, it led only to their subversion. They fell sway to its
power and became forever changed. They came to desire power for its own
sake and for their personal use. All else was forgotten, all other goals
abandoned. The First War of the Races was the direct result. The Race of
Man was the tool they employed, made submissive to their will by the
magic, shaped to become their weapon of attack. But their effort failed in
the face of the Druid Council and the combined might of the other Races.
The aggressors were defeated, and the Race of Man was driven south into
exile and isolation. Brona and his followers disappeared. It was said they
had been destroyed by the magic.
"Such a fool," Bremen said suddenly. "The Druid Sleep kept him alive,
but it stole away his heart and soul and left him a shell. All those
years, we believed him dead. And dead he was, in a sense. But the part
that survived was the evil over which the magic had gained dominance. It
was the part that sought still to claim the whole of the world and the
things that lived within it. It was the part that craved power over all.
What matter the price that reckless use of the Sleep demanded? What
difference the changes exacted for the extension of a life already wasted?
Brona had evolved into the Warlock Lord, and the Warlock Lord would
survive at all costs."
Kinson said nothing. It bothered him that Bremen could condemn so
easily Brona's use of the Druid Sleep without questioning at the same time
his own. For Bremen used the Sleep as well. He would argue that he used it
in a more balanced, controlled way, that he was cautious of its demands on
his body. He would argue that it was necessary to employ the Sleep, that
he did it so that he would be there for the Warlock Lord's inevitable
return. But for all that he might try to draw distinctions, the fact
remained that the ultimate consequences of the use were the same, whether
you were Warlock Lord or Druid.
One day, it would catch up with him.
"Did you see him, then?" the Borderman asked, anxious to move on. "Did
you see his face?"
The old man smiled. "He has no face or body left, Kinson. He is a
presence wrapped in a hooded cloak. Like myself, I sometimes think, for I
am little more these days."
"That isn't so," Kinson said at once.
"No," the other quickly agreed, "it isn't. I keep some sense of right
and wrong about me, and I am not yet a slave to the magic. Though that is
what you fear I will become, isn't it?"
Kinson did not answer. "Tell me how you managed to get so close. How
was it that you were not discovered?"
Bremen's eyes looked away, focusing on some distant place and time.
"It was not easy," he replied softly. "The cost was high."
He reached again for the aleskin and drank deeply, the weariness
mirrored in his face so heavy it might have been formed of iron links
dragging against his skin. "I was forced to make myself appear one of
them," he said after a moment. "I was required to shroud myself in their
thoughts and impulses, in the evil that roots within their souls. I was
cloaked in invisibility, so that my physical presence did not register,
and I was left only with my spirit self. That I cloaked in the darkness
that marks their own spirits, reaching deep within myself for the blackest
part of who I am. Oh, I see you question that this was possible. Believe
me, Kinson, the potential for evil roots deep in every man, myself
included. We restrain it better, keep it buried deeper, but it lives
within us. I was forced to bring it out of concealment in order to protect
myself. The feel of it, the rub of it against me, so close, so eager, was
terrible. But it served its purpose. It kept the Warlock Lord and his
minions from discovering me."
Kinson frowned. "But you were damaged."
"For a time. The walk back gave me a chance to heal." The old man
smiled anew, a brief twist of his thin lips. "The trouble is that once
brought so far out of its cage, a man's evil is reluctant thereafter to be
contained. It presses against the bars. It is more anxious to escape. More
prepared. And having lived in such close proximity to it, I am more
vulnerable to the possibility of that escape."
He shook his head. "We are always being tested in life, aren't we?
This is just one more instance."
There was a long moment of silence as the two men stared at one
another. The moon had moved across the sky to the southern edge of the
horizon and was sinking from view. The stars were brightening with its
passing, the sky clear of clouds, a brilliant black velvet in the vast,
unbroken silence.
Kinson cleared his throat. "As you said, you did what was required of
you. It was necessary that you get close enough to determine if your
suspicions were correct. Now we know." He paused. "Tell me. Did you see
the book as well? The Ildatch?"
"There, in his hands, out of my reach, or I would surely have taken it
and destroyed it, even at the cost of my own life."
The Warlock Lord and the Ildatch, there in the Skull Kingdom, as real
as life, not rumor, not legend. Kinson Ravenlock rocked back slightly and
shook his head. Everything true, just as Bremen had feared. As they had
both feared. And now this army of Trolls come down out of the Northland to
subdue the Races. It was history repeating itself. It was the First War of
the Races beginning all over again. Only this time there might not be
anyone to bring it to an end.
"Well, well," he said sadly.
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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