by Terry Brooks
The light filled the bluff plain, building on itself, rising up until the trees and cliffs that bracketed it had disappeared entirely, until the skies had folded into it and everything was colored silver. There was a wrenching sound, a rending of earth and rock, and a settling of something heavy. Through the slits of her eyes she could see the shapes in the light growing large and taking form as buildings and trees, roadways and paths, and lawns, and parks appeared. Arborlon was coming back into being. She watched it materialize as if seeing it from behind a window streaked with rain, hazy and indistinct. At its center, like a gleaming arch of silver and scarlet in the mist, was the Ellcrys. She felt her strength begin to fail, the power of the magic stealing it away for its own use, and she found herself fighting to stand upright. White light whirled and spun like clouds before a storm, gathering in force until it seemed it must explode everything about it in a roar of thunder.
Then it began to fade, dimming steadily, wanning back into darkness like water into sand.
It was finished then, Wren knew. She could see Arborlon within the haze, could even pick out the people standing in clusters at the edges of the brightness as they peered to see what lay without. She had done what her grandmother had asked of her, what Allanon had asked, and had accomplished all with which she had been charged by others—but not yet that with which she had charged herself. For it would never be enough simply to restore the Elves and their city to the Westland. It would never be enough to give them back to the Four Lands, a people returned out of self-imposed exile. Not after Morrowindl. Not when she knew the truth about the Shadowen. Not while she lived with the horror of the possibility that the magic might be misused again. The lives of the Elves had been given to her on others’ terms; she would give them back again on her own.
She clamped her hands about the Ruhk Staff and sent what was left of its magic soaring out into the light, burning downward into the earth, all of it that remained, all that could ever be. She drained it in a final fury that sent a crackle of fire exploding through the shimmering air. It swept out like lightning, flash after flash. She did not let up. She expended it all, emptying the Staff and the Stone, burning the power away until the last of it flared a final time and was gone.
Darkness returned. A haze hung on the night air momentarily, then dissipated into motes of dust and began to settle. She followed its movement, seeing grass now beneath her feet where there hadn’t been grass before, smelling the scents of trees and flowers, of burning pitch, of cooking foods, of wood and iron, and of life. She looked past the dark line of the Ruhk Staff to the city, to Arborlon returned, buildings lit by lamps, streets and tree lanes stretching its length and breadth like dark ribbons.
And the people, the Elves, stood before her, thousands of them, gathered at the city’s edge, staring wide-eyed and wondering. Elven Hunters stood at the forefront, weapons drawn. She faced them, saw their eyes fix on her, on the Staff she held. She was aware of Tiger Ty’s mutter of disbelief, of Triss coming up to stand next to her, and of Stresa and Faun. She could feel their heat against her back, small touches flicking against her skin.
Barsimmon Oridio and Eton Shart emerged from the crowd and came slowly forward. When they were a dozen feet away, they stopped. Neither seemed able to speak.
Wren took her weight off the Ruhk Staff and straightened. For the first time she glanced up at the Loden. The gleaming facets had disappeared into darkness. The magic had gone back into the earth. The Loden had turned to common stone.
She brought the Ruhk Staff close to her face and saw that it was charred and brittle and dead. After taking it firmly in both hands, she brought it down across raised knee, snapped it in two, and cast the remains to the ground.
“The Elves are home,” she said to the two who stood open-mouthed before her, “and we won’t ever leave again.”
Triss stepped past her, his body still splinted and bandaged, but his eyes filled with pride and determination. He walked to where he could be seen, standing close to the Commander of the Elven armies and the First Minister, and called out. “Home Guard!”
They appeared instantly, dozens of them, gathering before their captain in row after row. There was a murmuring in the crowd, an anticipation.
Then Triss turned back to face Wren, dropped slowly to one knee, and placed his right hand over his heart in salute. Behind him, the lamps of the city flickered like fireflies in the dark. “Wren Elessedil, Queen of the Elves!” he announced. “The Home Guard stand ready to serve!”
His Elven Hunters followed his lead to a man, kneeling and repeating the words in a jumbled rush. Some among the crowd did the same, then more. Eton Shart went down, then after a moment’s hesitation Barsimmon Oridio as well. Whether they did it out of recognition of the truth or simply in response to Triss, Wren never knew. She stood motionless as they knelt before her, the whole of the Elven nation, her charge from Ellenroh, her people found. There were tears in her eyes as she stepped forward to greet them.
The Druid’s Keep shuddered one final time, a massive stone giant stirring in sleep, and went still.
Cogline waited, braced against the heavy reading table, eyes closed, head bowed, making sure his strength had returned. He stood once more within the vault that sealed away the Druid Histories, come back to himself after his search to find Walker Boh, after leaving his body in the old Druid way. He had found Walker and warned him but been unable to remain—too weak now, too old, a jumble of bones filled with stiffness and pain. It had taken all of his strength just to do as much as he had.
He waited, and the tremors did not return.
Finally he pushed himself upright, released his grip on the table, let his eyes open, and looked carefully around. The first thing he saw was himself—his hands and arms, then his body, all of him—made whole again. He caught his breath, rubbed his hands together experimentally, and touched himself to be certain that what he was seeing was real. The transparency was gone; he was flesh and blood once more. Rumor crowded up against him, big head shoving into his scarecrow body so hard it threatened to knock the old man down. The moor cat was himself again as well, no longer faint lines and shadows, no longer wraithlike.
And the room—its stone walls were hard and clear, its colors sharply detailed, and its lines and surfaces defined by substance and light.
Cogline took a long, slow breath. Walker had done it. He had brought Paranor back into the world of Men.
He went out from the little room through the study beyond to the halls of the Keep. Rumor padded after. Sunlight filled the corridors, streaming through the high windows, motes of dust dancing in the glow. The old man caught a glimpse of white clouds against a blue sky. The smell of trees and grasses wafted on the summer air.
Back.
Alive.
He began to search for Walker, moving through the corridors of the Keep, his footsteps scraping softly on the stone. Ahead, he could hear the faint rush of something rising from within the castle’s bowels, a low rumbling sound, a huffing like . . . And then he knew. It was the fire that fed the Keep from the earth’s core, fire that had been cold and dead all this time, now alive again with Paranor’s return.
He turned into the hall that ran to the well beneath the Keep.
In the shadows ahead, something moved.
Cogline slowed and stopped. Rumor dropped to a crouch and growled. A figure materialized out of the gloom, come from a place where the sunlight could not reach, all black and featureless. The figure approached, the light beginning to define it, a man hooded and cowled, tall and thin against the gloom, moving slowly but purposefully.
“Walker?” Cogline asked.
The other did not reply. When he was less than a dozen feet away, he stopped. Rumor’s growl had died to heavy breathing. The man’s arm reached up and drew back the hood.
“Tell me what you see,” Walker Boh said.
Cogline stared. It was Walker, and yet it was not. His features were the same, but he was bigger somehow, and even with his white skin
he seemed as black as wet ashes, the cast of him so dark it seemed any light that approached was being absorbed. His body, even beneath the robes, gave the impression of being armored. His right arm was still missing. His left hand held the Black Elfstone.
“Tell me,” Walker asked him again.
Cogline stared into his eyes. They were flat and hard and depthless, and he felt as if they were looking right through him.
“I see Allanon,” the old man answered softly.
A shudder passed through Walker Boh and was gone. “He is part of me now, Cogline. That was what he left to guard the Keep when he sent it from the Four Lands; that was what was waiting for me in the mist. They were all there, all of the Druids—Galaphile, Bremen, Allanon, all of them. That was how they passed on their knowledge, one to the next—a kind of joining of spirit with flesh. Bremen carried it all when he became the last of the Druids. He passed it on to Allanon, who passed in turn to me.”
His eyes were bright; there were fires there that Cogline could not define. “To me!” Walker Boh cried out suddenly. “Their teachings, their lore, their history, their madness—all that I have mistrusted and avoided for so long! He gave it all to me!”
He was trembling, and Cogline was suddenly afraid. This man he had known so well, his student, at times his friend, was someone else now, a man made over as surely as day changed to night.
Walker’s hand tightened about the Black Elfstone as he lifted it before him. “It is done, old man, and it can’t be undone. Allanon has his Druid and his Keep back in the world of Men. He has his charge to me fulfilled. And he has placed his soul within me!” The hand lowered like a weight pressing down against the earth. “He thinks to make the Druids over through me. Brin Ohmsford’s legacy. He gives me his power, his lore, his understanding, his history. He even gives me his face. You look at me, and you see him.”
A distant look came into the dark eyes. “But I have my own strength, a strength I gained by surviving the rite of passage he set for me, the horror of seeing what becoming a Druid means. I have not been made over completely, even in this.”
He stared hard at Cogline, then stepped forward and placed his arm about the thin shoulders. “You and I, Cogline,” he whispered. “The past and the future, we are all that remain of the Druids. It will be interesting to see if we can make a difference.”
He turned the old man slowly about, and together they began to walk back along the corridor. Rumor stared after them momentarily, sniffed at the floor where Walker Boh’s feet had trod as if trying it identify his scent, then padded watchfully after.
Here ends Book Three of The Heritage of Shannara. Book Four, The Talismans of Shannara, will conclude the series as Walker, Wren, Par, Coll, and their friends engage in a final struggle against Rimmer Dall and the Shadowen.
Read on for an excerpt from
The Measure of the Magic
by Terry Brooks
Published by Del Rey Books
ONE
HUMMING TUNELESSLY, THE RAGPICKER WALKED the barren, empty wasteland in the aftermath of a rainstorm. The skies were still dark with clouds and the earth was sodden and slick with surface water, but none of that mattered to him. Others might prefer the sun and blue skies and the feel of hard, dry earth beneath their feet, might revel in the brightness and the warmth. But life was created in the darkness and damp of the womb, and the ragpicker took considerable comfort in knowing that procreation was instinctual and needed nothing of the face of nature’s disposition that he liked the least.
He was an odd-looking fellow, an unprepossessing, almost comical figure. He was tall and whipcord-thin, and he walked like a long-legged waterbird. Dressed in dark clothes that had seen much better days, he tended to blend in nicely with the mostly colorless landscape he traveled. He carried his rags and scraps of cloth in a frayed patchwork bag slung over one shoulder, the bag looking very much as if it would rip apart completely with each fresh step its bearer took. A pair of scuffed leather boots completed the ensemble, scavenged from a dead man some years back, but still holding up quite nicely.
Everything about the ragpicker suggested that he was harmless. Everything marked him as easy prey in a world where predators dominated the remnants of a decimated population. He knew how he looked to the things that were always hunting, what they thought when they saw him coming. But that was all right. He had stayed alive this long by keeping his head down and staying out of harm’s way. People like him, they didn’t get noticed. The trick was in not doing anything to call attention to yourself.
So he tried hard to give the impression that he was nothing but a poor wanderer who wanted to be left alone, but you didn’t always get what you wanted in this world. Even now, other eyes were sizing him up. He could feel them doing so, several pairs in several different places. Those that belonged to the animals—the things that the poisons and chemicals had turned into mutants—were already turning away. Their instincts were sharper, more finely tuned, and they could sense when something wasn’t right. Given the choice, they would almost always back away.
It was the eyes of the human predators that stayed fixed on him, eyes that lacked the awareness necessary to judge him properly. Two men were studying him now, deciding whether or not to confront him. He would try to avoid them, of course. He would try to make himself seem not worth the trouble. But, again, you didn’t always get what you wanted.
He breathed in the cool, damp air, absorbing the taste of the rain’s aftermath on his tongue, of the stirring of stagnation and sickness generated by the pounding of the sudden storm, of the smells of raw earth and decay, the whole of it marvelously welcome. Sometimes, when he was alone, he could pretend he was the only one left in the world. He could think of it all as his private preserve, his special place, and imagine everything belonged to him.
He could pretend that nothing would ever bother him again.
His humming dropped away, changing to a little song:
Ragpicker, ragpicker, what you gonna do
When the hunters are hunting and they’re hunting for you.
Ragpicker, ragpicker, just stay low.
If you don’t draw attention they might let you go.
He hummed a few more bars, wondering if he had gotten past the predators. He was thinking it was almost time to stop and have something to drink and eat. But that would have to wait. He sighed, his lean, sharp-featured face wreathed in a tight smile that caused the muscles of his jaw to stand out like cords.
Ragpicker, ragpicker, you’re all alone.
The hunters that are hunting want to pick your bones.
Ragpicker, ragpicker, just walk on.
If you wait them out they will soon be gone.
He crossed a meadow, a small stream filled with muddy water, a rocky flat in which tiny purple flowers were blooming, and a withered woods in which a handful of poplars grew sparse and separate as if strangers to one another. Ahead, there was movement in a rugged mass of boulders that formed the threshold to foothills leading up to the next chain of mountains, a high and wild and dominant presence. He registered the movement, ignored it. Those who had been watching him were still there and growing restless; he must skirt their hiding place and hope they were distracted by other possibilities. But there didn’t appear to be anyone else out here other than himself, and he was afraid that they would come after him just because they were bored.
He continued on furtively, still humming softly.
Daylight leached away as the clouds began to thicken anew. It might actually rain some more, he decided. He glanced at the skies in all four directions, noting the movement of the clouds and the shifting of their shadows against the earth. Yes, more rain coming. Better find shelter soon.
He stalked up the slope into the rocks, his long, thin legs stretching out, meandering here and there as if searching for the best way through. He headed away from the watchers, pretending he was heedless of them, that he knew nothing of them and they, in turn, should not want to bother wi
th him.
But suddenly his worst fears were realized and just like that they were upon him.
They emerged from the rocks, two shaggy-haired, ragged men, carrying blades and clubs. One was blind in one eye, and the other limped badly. They had seen hard times, the ragpicker thought, and they would not be likely to have seen much charity and therefore not much inclined to dispense any. He stood where he was and waited on them patiently, knowing that flight was useless.
“You,” One-eye said, pointing a knife at him. “What you got in that bag of yours?”
The ragpicker shrugged. “Rags. I collect them and barter for food and drink. It’s what I do.”
“You got something more than that, I’d guess,” said the second man, the larger of the two. “Better show us what it is.”
The ragpicker hesitated, and then dumped everything on the ground, his entire collection of brightly colored scarves and bits of cloth, a few whole pieces of shirts and coats, a hat or two, some boots. Everything he had managed to find in his travels of late that he hadn’t bargained away with the Trolls or such.
“That’s crap!” snarled One-eye, thrusting his knife at the ragpicker. “You got to do better than that! You got to give us something of worth!”
“You got coin?” demanded the other.
Hopeless, the ragpicker thought. No one had coin anymore and even if they did it was valueless. Gold or silver, maybe. A good weapon, especially one of the old automatics from the days of the Great Wars, would have meant something, would have been barter material. But no one had coins.
“Don’t have any,” he said, backing away a step. “Can I pick up my rags?”
One-eye stepped forward and ground the colored cloth into the dirt with the heel of his boot. “That’s what I think of your rags. Now watch and see what I’m gonna do to you!”
