Heritage of Shannara 1 – The Scions of Shannara
Heritage of Shannara 1 – The Scions of Shannara
The old man sat alone in the shadow of the Dragon’s
Teeth and watched the coming darkness chase the day-
light west. The day had been cool, unusually so for
midsummer, and the night promised to be chill. Scattered clouds
masked the sky, casting their silhouettes upon the earth, drifting
in the manner of aimless beasts between moon and stars. A hush
filled the emptiness left by the fading light like a voice waiting
to speak.
It was a hush that whispered of magic, the old man thought.
A fire burned before him, small still, just the beginning of
what was needed. After all, he would be gone for several hours.
He studied the fire with a mixture of expectation and uneasiness
before reaching down to add the larger chunks ofdeadwood that
brought the flames up quickly. He poked at it with a stick, then
stepped away, driven back by the heat. He stood at the edge of
the light, caught between the fire and the growing dark, a crea-
ture who might have belonged to neither or both.
His eyes glittered as he looked off into the distance. The peaks
of the Dragon’s Teeth jutted skyward like bones the earth could
not contain. There was a hush to the mountains, a secrecy that
clung like mist on a frosty morning and hid all the dreams of
the ages.
The fire sparked sharply and the old man brushed at a stray
bit of glowing ash that threatened to settle on him. He was just
a bundle of sticks, loosely tied together, that might crumble into
dust if a strong wind were to blow. Gray robes and a forest cloak
hung on him as they would have on a scarecrow. His skin was
leathery and brown and had shrunken close against his bones.
White hair and beard wreathed his head, thin and fine, like
wisps of gauze against the firelight. He was so wrinkled and
hunched down that he looked to be a hundred years old.
He was, in fact, almost a thousand.
Strange, he thought suddenly, remembering his years. Para-
nor, the Councils of the Races, even the Druids-gone. Strange
that he should have outlasted them all.
He shook his head. It was so long ago, so far back in time
that it was a part of his life he only barely recognized. He had
thought that part finished, gone forever. He had thought himself
free. But he had never been mat, he guessed. It wasn’t possible
to be free of something that, at the very least, was responsible
for the fact that he was still alive.
How else, after all, save for the Druid Sleep, could he still
be standing there?
He shivered against the descending night, darkness all about
him now as the last of the sunlight slipped below the horizon.
It was time. The dreams had told him it must be now, and he
believed the dreams because he understood them. That, too,
was a part of his old life that would not let him go-dreams,
visions of worlds beyond worlds, of warnings and truths, of
things that could and sometimes must be.
He stepped away from the fire and started up the narrow
pathway into the rocks. Shadows closed about him, their touch
chill. He walked for a long time, winding through narrow de-
files, scrambling past massive boulders, angling along craggy
drops and jagged splits in the rock. When he emerged again into
the light, he stood within a shallow, rock-strewn valley domi-
nated by a lake whose glassy surface reflected back at him with
a harsh, greenish cast.
The lake was the resting place for the shades of Druids come
and gone. It was to the Hadeshom that he had been summoned.
“Might as well get on with it,” he growled softly.
He walked slowly, cautiously downward into the valley, his
steps uneasy, his heart pounding in his ears. He had been away
a long time. The waters before him did not stir; the shades lay
sleeping. It was best that way, he thought. It was best that they