A sudden rumble shook the Knife Edge, throwing Panamon and Shea to their knees again. Boulders crashed down the crumbling mountainside as the heavy convulsions continued to build from deep within the earth. The Muten lumbered mindlessly toward them, unaffected by the tremors. Panamon climbed shakenly to his feet, pulling Shea after him.
"The whole pa.s.s is coming down," lie stated quietly. "We don"t have time to argue. I can take care of myself - just as I did long before I met you or Keltset. Now I want you to run - get clear of this pa.s.s!"
He put one hand on the Valeman"s slim shoulder and gently shoved him away. Shea took several steps backward and hesitated, bringing the Sword of Shannara up almost threateningly. Panamon Creel"s broad face showed a flicker of surprise, and then the familiar devilish grin appeared and the eyes turned to fire.
"We"ll meet again, Shea Ohmsford. You watch for me."
He waved the piked hand once in farewell, and turned to meet the advancing Muten. Shea stared after him momentarily. His fading eyesight must be fooling him - for an instant it seemed that the scarlet thief was not limping after all. Then the heavy tremors rippled through the mountain pa.s.s still another time, and the Valeman broke for the safety of the foothills. Slipping and stumbling through the loose rock and earth, dodging the cascade of stone and debris that tumbled from the heights of the Knife Edge into the narrow canyon, he ran on alone.
Chapter Thirty-Four.
The afternoon was almost gone. Sunlight slipped in long, hazy streamers through the drifting white clouds, settling with warm touches over the barren, empty Northland terrain. Here and there the light fell providently on small patches of green - the first signs of a permanent life that one day soon would flourish in this earth that had lain parched and desolate for so many years. In the distance, the blunted tips of the shattered Knife Edge broke starkly against the northern horizon, and from the devastated valley beyond, the dust still hung suspended above the ruins of the Skull Kingdom.
Shea seemed to appear out of nowhere, wandering aimlessly through the tangle of ravines and ridges that carved out the foothills immediately below the Knife Edge. Half-blind and completely exhausted, the tattered figure was barely recognizable. He came toward Allanon without seeing him, both hands gripping tightly the silver-handled sword. For just an instant, the Druid stared speechlessly at the strange spectacle of the stumbling, ragged swordsman. Then with a sharp cry of relief, he rushed forward to gather in the thin, battered frame of Shea Ohmsford, and held him close.
The Valeman was asleep for a long time, and when he came awake again, it was night. He was lying in the shelter of a rock-encrusted overhang that opened into a deep, wide-bottomed ravine. A small wood fire crackled peacefully, lending added warmth to the cloak that was wrapped tightly about him. His troubled vision had begun to clear, and he found himself staring up into a bright, starlit night sky that stretched canopylike from ridge top to ridge top above him. He smiled in spite of himself. He could imagine himself in Shady Vale once again. A moment later Allanon"s dark shadow moved into the dim firelight.
"Are you feeling better?" the Druid asked in greeting and seated himself. There was something strange about Allanon. He seemed more human, less forbidding, and there was an unusual warmth in his voice.
Shea nodded. "How did you find me?"
"You found me. Don"t you remember anything?"
"No, none of it - nothing after..." Shea paused hesitantly. "Was there anybody... did you see anybody else?"
Allanon studied his anxious expression for a moment, as if debating his answer, then shook his dark face.
"You were alone."
Shea felt something catch in his throat, and he lay back in the, warmth of the blankets, swallowing hard. So Panamon, too, was gone. Somehow, he had not expected it to end like this.
"Are you all right?" the Druid"s deep voice reached out to him in the darkness. "Would you like to eat something now? I think it would be good for you if you did."
"Yes." Shea pushed himself up into a sitting position, the cloak still wrapped protectively about him. By the fire, Allanon was pouring soup into a small bowl. The aroma reached out to him invitingly, and he breathed it in. Then suddenly he thought of the Sword of Shannara and looked for it in the darkness. He saw it almost immediately, lying next to him, the bright metal gleaming faintly. As an afterthought, he felt through the pockets of his tunic for the Elfstones. He could not find them. Panicked, he began searching desperately through his clothing for the little pouch, but the result was the same. It was gone. A sinking sensation gripped him, and he lay back weakly for a moment. Perhaps Allanon...
"Allanon, I can"t find the Elfstones," he said quickly. "Did you...?"
The Druid moved over to his side and handed him the steaming bowl of soup and a small wooden spoon. His face was an impenetrable black shadow.
"No, Shea. You must have lost them when you fled the Knife Edge." He saw the crestfallen look on the other"s face and reached over to pat the slim shoulder rea.s.suringly. "There"s no point in worrying about them now. The stones have served their purpose. I want you to eat something and go back to sleep - you need to rest."
Mechanically, Shea sipped at the soup, unable to forget quite so easily the loss of the Elfstones. They had been with him from the beginning, protecting him every step of the way. Several times, they had saved his life. How could he have been so careless? He thought back for a moment, trying vainly to remember where he might have lost them, but it was useless. It could have happened anytime.
"I"m sorry about the Elfstones," he apologized quietly, feeling that he had to say something more.
Allanon shrugged and smiled faintly. He seemed weary and somehow older as he seated himself beside the Valeman.
"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 impa.s.sive. "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."
The Druid seemed to retreat into himself for a long moment, then continued.
"Bremen was my father. He had a chance to end the menace of the Warlock Lord, but he made too many mistakes and Brona escaped him. His escape was my father"s responsibility - and if the Warlock Lord had succeeded in his plans, my father would have earned the blame. I lived with the fear of that happening until it was an obsession. I swore not to make the mistakes he had made. I"m afraid, Shea, that I never really had much faith in you. I feared you were too weak to do what had to be done, and I hid the truth to serve my own ends. In many ways, I was unfair to you. But you were my last chance to redeem my father, to purge my own sense of guilt for what he had done, and to erase forever the responsibility of the Druids for the creation of Brona."
He hesitated and looked directly into Shea"s eyes. "I was wrong, Valeman. You were a better man than I gave you credit for being."
Shea smiled and shook his head slowly.
"No, Allanon. You were the one who so often spoke to me of hindsight. Now heed your own words, historian."
In the darkness across from him, the Druid returned the smile wistfully.
"I wish... I wish we had more time, Shea Ohmsford. Time to learn to know each other better. But I have a debt that must be paid... all too soon..."
He trailed off almost sadly, the lean face lowering into shadow. The puzzled Valeman waited a moment, thinking that he would say something more. He did not.
"In the morning, then." Shea stretched wearily and burrowed deep into the cloak, warm and relaxed by the soup and the fire. "We"ve a long journey back to the Southland."
Allanon did not reply immediately.
"Your friends are close now, looking for you," he responded finally. "When they find you, will you relate to them all that I have told you?"
Shea barely heard him, his thoughts drifting to Shady Vale and the hope of going home again.
"You can do the job better than I," he murmured sleepily.
There was another long moment of silence. At last he heard Allanon moving in the darkness beyond, and when the tall man spoke again, his voice sounded strangely distant.
"I may not be able to, Shea. I"m very tired - I"ve exhausted myself physically. For a time now, I must... sleep."
"Tomorrow," Shea mumbled. "Good night."
The Druid"s voice came back a whisper.
"Good-bye, my young friend. Good-bye, Shea."
But the Valeman was already sleeping.
Shea awoke with a start, the morning sunlight streaming down on him. His eyes snapped open at the sound of horses" hooves and booted feet, and he found himself surrounded by a cl.u.s.ter of lean, rangy figures clothed in forest green. Instinctively his hand dropped to the Sword of Shannara, and he struggled to a sitting position, squinting sharply to see their faces. They were Elves. A tall, hard-featured Elf detached himself from the group and bent down to him. Deep, penetrating green eyes locked into his own, and a firm hand came up to rest rea.s.suringly on his shoulder.
"You"re among friends, Shea Ohmsford. We are Eventine"s men."
Shea climbed slowly to his feet, still grasping the Sword guardedly.
"Allanon...?" he asked, looking about for the Druid.
The tall man hesitated for a moment, then shook his head.
"There is no one else here. Only you."
Stunned, Shea moved past him and pushed his way through the ring of hors.e.m.e.n, his eyes quickly searching the length of the wide ravine. Gray rock and dust stared back at him, an empty, deserted pa.s.sage that twisted and disappeared from sight. Except for the Elven riders and himself, there was no one else. Then something the Druid had said came back to him - and he knew then that Allanon was really gone.
"Sleeping..." he heard himself whisper.
Woodenly, he turned back to the waiting Elves, then hesitated as tears streamed down his haggard face. But Allanon would come back to them when he was needed, he told himself angrily. Just as he had always done before. He brushed away the tears, and glanced momentarily into the bright blueness of the Northland sky. For just an instant, he seemed to hear the Druid"s voice calling to him from far, far away. A faint smile crossed his lips.
"Good-bye, Allanon," he answered softly.
Chapter Thirty-Five.
So it ended. Little more than ten days later, those who still remained of the little band that had journeyed forth from Culhaven so many weeks ago bade farewell to one another for the last time. It was a bright, clear day filled with sunshine and summer"s freshness. From out of the west, a gentle breeze ruffled the emerald green carpet of the Tyrsian gra.s.slands, and in the distance, the sluggish roar of the Mermidon floated softly through the early-morning stillness. They stood together by the roadway leading out from the walled city - Durin and Dayel, the former without the use of his left arm, which was splinted and wrapped. Dayel had found him among the wounded, and now he was healing rapidly. Balinor Buckhannah in chain mail and royal blue riding cloak, a still-pale Shea Ohmsford, the faithful Flick, and Menion Leah. They spoke in quiet tones for a time, smiling bravely, trying to appear amiable and relaxed without much success, glancing from time to time at the tethered horses that grazed contentedly behind them. At last there was an awkward silence, and hands were extended and taken, and mumbled promises to visit soon were quietly exchanged. It was a painful good-bye, and behind the smiles and the handshakes, there was sadness.
Then they rode away, each to his own home. Durin and Dayel traveled west to Beleal, where Dayel would finally be reunited with his beloved Lynhss. The Ohmsfords turned south to Shady Vale and, as Flick had repeatedly announced to his brother, a well-deserved rest. As far as Flick was concerned, their traveling days were over. Menion Leah went with them to the Vale, determined to see to it personally that nothing further befell Shea. From there, he would return for a time to the highlands to be with his father, who would be missing him by now. But very soon, he knew he must come back again to the border country and to the red-haired daughter of kings who would be waiting.